The Marauders Adventures
by MaraudersForever62
Summary: WARNING FIFTH MARAUDER! What if there was another marauder, her name is Emily Patterson. Join Emily and the marauders in there school life, as they fight with Snape, explore the castle and create strong friendships. What difference could 1 person make to everything? Rated T because of occasional language, (the marauders are teenagers) and maybe some themes later on in the book.
1. Chapter 1

**This is the first fanfiction I've ever written so I welcome constructive criticism, **

**Disclaimer: I don't own harry potter, or the marauder era. This applies to all chapters.**

...

Emily Patterson was a muggle born, but when she got her letter she wasn't entirely clueless, this was simply because she had an older brother (John) who had graduated from Hogwarts a year before she started. (Emily was secretly grateful for this as one of the excitements of boarding school is that you get to have a break from your family, she didn't think it would be the same if her family was there.

"Mum, today is the day the Hogwarts letters come!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"You would be excited- you probably know enough magic by now to pass your O.W.L.s," said her dad, with a twinkle in his eye.

"No, I just had a look though John's old first year textbook and all the spells seemed pretty easy so I tried them out," Emily said.

"I noticed, you had the reversal of accidental magic squad over when you charmed the flowers to float." her dad said.

"They couldn't for the life of them figure out what had caused you anger or fear that could be solved by making flowers float," her mum added, chuckling.

"So, I may have tried out a FEW spells that doesn't mean I'm super smart or anything, if a teacher asked me to write a foot long essay on the spell 'Wingardium Leviosa I wouldn't be able to, but I can do this," snatching John's wand of the table before he could react, she addressed her toast,

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

And the toast began to float up and into her mouth.

"It's a good thing the Ministry recognises me as a magical user in this house or there would be a letter warning you about expulsion from Hogwarts before you even started," John said, taking his wand back.

Emily shrugged. "It would be nice to set a record."

"The mail's here!" Emily jumped up out of her seat upon hearing the telltale shuffling of the mail through the slot and ran to the front door.

"YES, my Hogwarts letter!"

She reentered the room, completely forgetting all the other mail, which John went to fetch with a sigh.

"Mum," she said after tearing through her letter, "I've got the list of things I need from Diagon Alley. Can you take me?"

"I can if you want," John offered. "I've got business at Gringotts to sort out."

"What business?"

"I'm buying Zonko's, remember? Merlin, I hope your magic is better than your memory. How you can forget that your brother's going to own a joke shop that's right next to your school is beyond me. If it was me, I would have been thinking of all the pranks I could pull off with those supplies."

Emily's eyes glinted in the way that her family had come to know and be wary of.

John continued, "Too bad you're not allowed to go into Hogsmeade until third year."

"You can always owl them to me," Emily shrugged.

"Yeah I will, but you have to tell me what you're up to. If there's one thing I'll miss about Hogwarts, it's the pranks. People don't seem to find it as funny when you turn their hair pink on their way into the Ministry."

Emily snickered. "Well, it didn't help that it was the head of the DMLE and he was late to an appointment with the Minister."

"I didn't know," John said, pretending to look innocent. The rest of breakfast passed with them reminiscing about John's times at Hogwarts.

When Emily fell asleep that night, she plotted, even as she dreamed, of how to disturb the peace in Hogwarts with pranks, and the joys of being able to use magic to help.

...

James Potter was still in bed. He hated mornings. When a consistent irritating tapping noise woke him from his blissful dreams about playing Quidditch with Puddlemore United, James was not very happy. He had just risen, ready to murder the thing that had woken him, when he saw the white owl tapping on his window. More intrigued than murderous now, James let the owl inside.

The owl was carrying his Hogwarts letter. James groaned. He had always known he would get into Hogwarts, so the only thing he wondered about was why they couldn't deliver the letters later in the day. Opening the letter as he made his way downstairs, he skimmed through it.

"Brilliant," James thought, looking at the list of equipment. "I finally get my wand."

James handed his mother the letter.

"Hogwarts letters got delivered today." James ruffled his hair, trying to wake up.

"Well, how could you forget? Most children count down the days to see if they get in," his mum said, reading the letter a lot more thoroughly than James had. She spotted some information that James had missed and she was sure he wouldn't like. So, with a mischievous look, she said,"James, I have some terrible news."

"What?" James attempted to say while yawning, making an almost indistinguishable noise.

"You're not allowed to bring your own broom until next year."

Playing along with the dramatic, teasing tone in his mother's voice, James dropped down to his knees, raised his head towards the ceiling and absolutely yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

When James fell asleep that night, he didn't dream about flying (which had an almost constant reappearance in his dreams normally), he dreamt about Hogwarts because he had remembered that some of the snobby Pure-blood children he had met at parties would also be there. How unfortunate these children would be that James Potter had ever stepped foot on the train. Oh, he was going to be busy.

...

**A/N: I'll do you nice readers a deal: I've already previously posted this story, for reasons that I won't go into here so I already have quite a bit written. I'm just going and updating and improving. Each chapter will be about 1000 words long, and even if one of you people review, I'll update within the next 24 hours. If you don't, I'll update within the next 3 days anyway. Deal? Review and I'll post a new chapter straight away for this chapter because I've already written and edited it.**

**Maraudersforever62 :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Italics will be Kreature insulting Sirius under his breath like he does.**

...

Sirius Black had been locked in the attic again. He hated his family. They had been mouthing off Muggle-borns again. Somehow the subject of the conversation had been changed to Hogwarts, and they were expressing their disappointment that the supposed "cleansing of the school" had only managed to kill one Muggle-born, while petrifying only three others.

This had occurred decades ago but it still made his blood boil to think about it. One child had been killed, and she was only eleven, and all his family could do was wish that more had been slaughtered.

So, of course, Sirius had expressed his views. Forcefully.

So now he was sentenced to two weeks in the attic. It wasn't so bad this time, Sirius thought. Last time they had ordered Kreacher to not bring him food or water. That was hell. Although Kreacher was not specifically banned against getting Sirius food, Kreacher hated Sirius so much he would often try to make it as difficult as possible to get Sirius real food. Kreacher was in one of those moods today.

"Kreacher, get me some pie." It had to be a direct order, or the house elf would simply refuse. He had also learned to specify the type of food he wanted, as just saying 'food' left way too many loopholes for the house elf to work with, and he would come back with the most disgusting stuff. His excuse last time had been, "But it is perfectly fine food, Master Sirius ~_blood traitor_~ to the maggots and flies!"

Kreacher returned with a pop. "Here is your pie, master Sirius."

Sirius looked suspiciously at him. That had been too easy, he hadn't even insulted Sirius. All was explained when Sirius cut the pie up and revealed that it was, in fact, a mud pie.

"Kreacher, get me what my family had for dinner, no alterations." Sirius tried as his next attempt, figuring he couldn't go wrong with this one. His family was sure to have had real food and Kreacher wouldn't be able to do anything to it.

Kreacher returned with a wooden food bin containing the leftovers from the last meal. He looked incredibly pleased with himself.

"Here is what your noble family had for dinner. I remembered, no alterations."

Sighing, Sirius sent Kreacher away, realising that Kreacher could do this all day and it wouldn't get Sirius anything but rotten food and mud pies. He would just have to go to bed hungry today.

Lying down on the attic floor, Sirius realised something. The Hogwarts letters came tomorrow and there were no windows in the attic. Not knowing whether he'd been accepted or not would drive him mad! Knowing that he would eventually go to Hogwarts was what had kept him in this house in the first place.

With that depressing thought, Sirius had an idea. He emptied the rotten food out of the wooden bin, lay the bin on its side, and jumped on it. The wood that it was made of was thin, so it snapped in half easily enough. Sirius then began to break wood into smaller pieces and arranged them so they looked like a unlit fire. Sirius knew enough about fire to know that unless you had a powerful enough spell , the wood would not light easily. Considering that Sirius didn't know the spell at all, far less have a wand to perform it with, he knew he would have to make it easier to light.

Inspiration struck again and Sirius ripped off a bit of his shirt, scrunched it up into a ball, and placed it in the middle of the wood. Then, sitting cross legged next to the wood, Sirius focused all his magical energy into heating up his shirt. If he had been asked to repeat this feat, Sirius would say it was only desperate determination and being chronically hungry that gave Sirius the edge. It had taken him 2 hours but the fire was lit, the wood slowly beginning to catch fire after the shirt.

Had Sirius been born into a normal household, then his plan wouldn't have worked. But then again, if he had been born into a normal household, he wouldn't be locked in the attic. Because he was in a Pure-blood household, there was Floo powder on every door, rather like the way some Muggle religions had people put bowls of holy water up next to every door.

Sirius grabbed a handful of Floo powder, approached the fire, and spoke very clearly,"Number 12 Grimmauld Place, kitchen."

Sirius appeared in the kitchen, and immediately began to raid it. Once he had eaten, it was about 5:30 a.m., as it had taken him all night to get there, and it had taken him at least 30 minutes to eat. Sirius then grabbed a bunch of food and some Floo powder and Flooed back to the attic. He still had two weeks to survive. He repeatedly did this until he had enough food, then he waited downstairs for his Hogwarts letter to arrive. Fortunately for Sirius, it arrived at 7:30 a.m., before anyone else was awake. Sirius then read the letter, barely keeping his eyelids up, and Flooed back to the attic.

As Sirius went to sleep at 8:00 a.m. on a dirty attic floor next to a dying fire, clutching his Hogwarts letter for dear life, all he dreamed about was finally escaping his family.

...

Peter Pettigrew was also sleeping when his letter arrived. It wasn't that he was arrogant enough to forget that the letters came today, he was just sure he wouldn't be accepted. Peter thought he was a Squib, and he wasn't far off as his magic wasn't very powerful.

The owl delivering his letter tapped on his window for about 10 minutes when it gave up on trying to wake him and posted it though the letter box instead. It was because of this that Peter didn't notice the letter until his mother collected the post.

"Peter, you're going to Hogwarts!" she screamed.

"I can't be, I'm not magical! I haven't shown any signs of magic at all!" Peter yelled down, going downstairs.

His mother silently handed him the letter. Peter's heart soared when he saw it. He was going to Hogwarts. He was escaping his horrible Muggle school where he got terribly bullied.

When Peter fell asleep, all he dreamed about was finally having friend

**A/N: sorry about Peter's bit being short. I got a review 4 hours ago so here's chapter 2.**

MaraudersForever62


	3. Chapter 3

Remus Lupin was sat around the table eating his breakfast. The silence was welcome to him, he didn't want his mother commenting on the fact that normal children would be receiving there Hogwarts letters. He didn't want to think about it, he had long ago resigned himself to being homeschooled, and not having any friends because they couldn't find out what he was.

But here it was, the letter on the table proudly declaring that he, Remus John lupin, would be attending Hogwarts.

"You got accepted?" His mother asked in wonder, "I wonder if they know what you are"

"They do, it says..." said Remus, it was finally started to sink in,HE WAS GOING TO HOGWARTS "the headmaster included a note at the end" he handed it to her.

Dear Remus lupin

We are fully informed about your illness, but have managed to come up with a solution. A whomping willow has been planted on the grounds, every full moon your will touch the trees trunk, which will deactivate the tree, and go into the tunnel at its roots. This passage will lead you to an abandoned house with a lock on the door. You can transform there and madam pomfrey will collect you I'm the morning to heal so you are ready for classes. We only wait on your approval and we will understand if you do not wish to attend.

Yours sincerely

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin (first class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

Having this note read aloud finally got though to Remus he was going to Hogwarts, and they didn't care he was a werewolf. Remus had given up even dreaming about Hogwarts by now so this WAS beyond his wildest dreams.

Remus had dreamed about going to Hogwarts but that all stopped when he was 5.

*Flash back*

The five year old Remus lupin was too hot. His bedroom was boiling and he had opened the window to let some air in. He would regret this decision for the rest of his life. He was lying awake on his bed, trying to work out what time it was, when Fenir Greyback forced open the window and attacked him. He was in shock, and only had brief memories of his parents firing curses at the werewolf until it backed off and carried Remus downstairs, his mother distraught, and his father in denial.

Remus woke up in 's, just in time to hear a hushed conversation between a nurse and his parents.

'It really is the best thing,' assured the nurse, 'he will never be able to lead a normal life from now on.'

Remus wondered what she meant.

"He won't be able to have friends, it would put them all in too much danger."

Remus frowned at this, why wouldn't he be able to have friends?

"He won't even be able to attend Hogwarts, it's a boarding school someone is bound to notice if he's transforming very month, not only that think of the danger to the other students if there was a wolf run runnung around the school!"

The penny finally dropped for Remus, but he didn't like it. His father had always told him that werewolves were evil creatures with no soul, he still had a soul didn't he?

" He won't even be able to hold a job people don't like werewolves-"

"NO!" Came his mothers anguished cry, " WE BATTLED WITH THE WEREWOLF TO GET HIM, YOU CANT JUST KILL HIM NOW."

This angered and confused Remus even more, why would people want to kill him, he was still himself, still REMUS!'He was just about to speak up when his fathers reply shocked him. As young as he was, he knew his father hated werewolves and had been brought up to despise them. But instead of ordering Remus imminent death, his voice spoke strongly.

"Do not kill him,' He commanded, 'It is not his fault. I offended Fenir Greyback, it is my fault. I don't care if we have to educate him ourselves and support him financially for the rest of his life, he will not be 'Put Down.' he is an innocent little boy, and still our son. We are not killing him like an animal.'

After that Remus didn't dream about Hogwarts, or magic. He only wondered what he had done to deserve his curse.


	4. Chapter 4

Sirius was sat in the end compartment, reading the daily prophet, when a boy with messy black hair and glasses burst in.

'Hi',the boy said breathlessly,'I'm James Potter.'

'Sirius black', he replied,

'If anyone asks say I've been here the whole time', James said, throwing himself down on the seat opposite Sirius.

Sirius was about to ask what he meant when it became clear;

'JAMES POTTER', a loud female voice sounded from in the hallway, ' I AM GOING TO KILL YOU'

A minute later a girl with bright blue hair and a rather red face had appeared at the door,

'CHANGE IT BACK' She yelled, indicating to hair, 'CHANGE IT BACK RIGHT NOW'

'Change what back?', James asked in an innocent voice.

'MY HAIR' She screamed.

'Your hair?', James repeated,'oh, you decided to dye it blue'

'I didn't DECIDE anything,' she snarled, leaning into the compartment, 'you ran past and somehow managed to dye my whole compartments hair different colours.'

Just then 2 more girls appeared behind her, each sporting luminous green and yellow hair,

'How could I have done that, I've been in here since the train set off', James protested.

'Have you', said the yellow haired girl, 'can you prove it, because I think the new caretaker Argus Filch would be delighted to give out his first detention of the year'

James glanced at Sirius, wondering if he was going to cover for him. Sirius, who had been watching the argument like a tennis match so far, got the hint and decided to intervene,

'Yes he has', Sirius said, and all 3 girls looked at him in surprise, as if only just noticing he was there, 'we were just talking about the new law that would make muggle hunting leagal', Sirius indicated to the front page of his newspaper.

The blue haired girl looked furious, now she couldn't even prove it had been James, 'That law should be passed' she declared, and with one last glare at James, she flounced out if the compartment.

'Thanks mate' James breathed a sigh of relief.

'What did you DO',asked Sirius,

James grinned suddenly, 'It was a curse in a book that I got, you know 'CURSES AND COUNTER CURSES BY Professor Vindictus Viridian?'

Sirius nodded, he was going to buy that book but his parent wouldn't let him.

James took this as a sign to continue,'Well, it says to fire the curse 'Capillus versicoloris' at the ground, and 7 beams of light (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and Pink) will bounce off in different directions, hitting the nearest person and dying there hair. The actual spell literally means 'hair of many colours', James said this very fast without taking a breath.

Sirius chuckled 'Why though, how could you have made enemies already, isn't this only your first year'

'Yeah it is my first year,' James said, 'but I know them from pureblood parties I was forced to go to, I hate them, really stuck-up and believe in that 'Pureblood superiority' crap.

Sirius heart sank a bit, he was glad his new friend wasn't as bigoted as his own family, but if James hated those type of people he would hate Sirius as well. Even in school his family was finding a way to ruin his life.

Even so he kept a cheery demeanour, 'So all seven people that you hate just happened to be sitting in the same compartment'

'No, not really', James said, looking a bit guilty now, ' I only recognised six of them, I didn't know the seventh' He shrugged 'Acceptable causalities, considering.'

'True, by the way, where's your trunk?' Sirius asked, it had taken him ages to even get HIS trunk to the compartment, and now it rested next to him, as he was to small to get it on the luggage racks above.

James smiled again, and pulled a miniature trunk out of the pocket in his robes, 'I asked my mum to shrink it', He explained, 'The time spent learning the 'engorgio' charm was worth it, I had to do this or I wouldn't have been able to pull of my prank.' With these words he threw the miniature trunk onto the racks above, pointed his want at the trunk and muttered 'engorgio'.

'Any chance you can do the shrinking one' Sirius said, indicating to his trunk.

'Sorry, no, took me about a week to do that one, no one was teaching me so I just had to guess with the wand movements,'James laughed.

The compartment doors opened for the third time, and a girl with flaming red hair stormed in, sat down and looked out of the window, her face pressed to the pane, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the compartment was already occupied.

James and Sirius exchanged a look, wondering if someone had put a disillusionment charm on them.

Hi, I'm James'

'Lily,' she said thickly, then turned back to the window.

The doors of the compartment were swung open again and a boy with black greasy hair and a large crooked nose burst in and sat down opposite Lily.

'I don't want to talk to you,' she said in a constricted voice.

'Why not?'

'Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore.'

'So what?'

She threw him a look of deep dislike.

'So she's my sister!'

'She's only a-'

Sirius was sure he was going to say 'muggle', but Lily didn't notice, she seemed to have buried her head into her robes, and was trying to wipe her eyes.

'But we're going!' The greasy haired boy said, and the exhilaration was clear in his voice. 'This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!'

Lily nodded, mopping her eyes, and half smiled.

'You'd better be in Slytherin,' said the boy, seemingly encouraged by the fact that Lily had smiled.

'Slytherin?' Said James, speaking up at last.

'Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you? James asked Sirius who had been watching the conversation with interest.

Sirius' heart sank a little more, and this time he could not bring himself to smile, 'My whole family have been in Slytherin,' he admitted, waiting for the disapproving glare from James to come.

But to his surprise James said, 'Blimey, and I thought you seemed all right'. Sirius could clearly hear the teasing tone in his voice that suggested he was joking.

Sirius grinned, 'Maybe I'll break the tradition.' I HOPE SO, Sirius thought, 'Where are you heading if you've got the choice?'

James mimed lifting a invisible sword, '"Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!" Like my dad.'

The greasy haired boy made a small disparaging noise. James turned on him.

'Got a problem with that?'

'No,' the boy protested, though his sneer said otherwise, 'If you'd rather be brawny than brainy-'

Sirius looked him up and down and interjected 'Where are you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?'

James burst out laughing and Sirius smiled inwardly at his laughter, though he wasn't sure why. Lily straightened up, her face the same shade as here hair and glared at Sirius and James.

'Come on, Severus, let's find another compartment.' Lily said, in a lofty voice.

'Oooooo ...' James and Sirius said in unison, imitating her voice.

As they left James tried to trip Severus on there way out.

He called out 'See ya, Snivellus!' and slammed the compartment door shut.

'Snivellus?' Sirius asked, with raised eyebrows,

'Its his name isn't it' James shrugged.

'I think it's "Severus"'

'Oh, well now he's "Snivellus"'

'Fair enough' agreed Sirius

**...**

**A/N longer chapter than usual to make up for the last one which was shorter. I know no-one reviewed, but I got my 4th follower of this story, so I figured it should have 4 chapter.**

**Just a reminder, the review thing applies to all chapters. If you review, I'll get you an update in 24h. If not, then I get 3 days to sort it out. After all I get depressed if I get no inspiration.**

**MarauderForever62**


	5. Chapter 5

5 minutes later, there was a knock on the compartment door.

'How many times!' exclaimed Sirius, 'that's the 4th time in 20 minutes.'

'Yeah, but one time it was me, and that turned out awesome,' said James, laughing at Sirius' reaction.

The compartment door slid open once more, and a girl with bright purple hair stood at the door way, her trunk trailing beside her. Sirius recognised the luminous quality of her hair, and glanced at James. To his surprise, James wasn't staring at this girl with hate, or the look that said Try-To-Prove-That-Was-Me, he was looking apprehensive and slightly guilty.

'Hi,' she said tentatively, ' can I sit here, I just got kicked out of my old compartment'

'Sure,' said James, slightly more relaxed, due to the fact she hadn't started yelling at him yet.

'Thanks,' she sat down on the seat opposite Sirius and next to James,' I'm Emily Patterson'

'Sirius black'

'James potter'

'Sirius?' Emily asked, eyebrows raised.

'My parents hate me, why else would they have called me this!' said Sirius, his arm raised in mock celebration.' Emily smiled.

'So, what did you get kicked out of your compartment for?' James said, leaning back into his seat.

'I'm not sure,' Emily frowned slightly, 'What's a "Mudblood?"'

'It means muggle born, but it's like a swear word' James explained, 'Why?'

'Thats what they called me before kicking me out,' Emily said shrugging, ' Oh well, I didn't like them anyway, they kept going on about hair styles and makeup and hair potions. They're never going to forgive you by the way, James, you messed up they're hair, the biggest crime on earth.' She rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'Girls'.

'You know it was me?'James said in surprise.

'And your not currently trying to hex him into the next century?' Added Sirius.

'No need,' said Emily, 'It wouldn't work anyway, looks like you bought the same book as me, so you'd know all of the counter curses, "_Capillus versicoloris_?"

'Yep,' said James, grinning slightly now, 'It was the only curse that I could do that would hit multiple targets.'

'If you read the same book as James, then why don't you know the counter curse?'

'I do, but I dint want to do it in front of the other girls, they would have just copied me, and it was funny seeing the outraged looks.' She took out her wand and pointed it at her head, '_Capillus normalis_,' Emily's hair turned brown.

The compartment door slid open, and Sirius jumped up from his seat,

'WHO THE HELL IS IT NOW' he said exasperated.

A trolly, and an old women, looking slightly alarmed by Sirius, came in to view,

'Anything from the trolly, dears'

Looking slightly embarrassed now, Sirius pulled out a bag full of galleons, and ordered half the trolly. James and Emily stared at him.

'What,' he said noticing them,'I'm hungry'

'Well, seeing as we are the last compartment we may as well buy the rest' James grinned.

'Good, I've never tried magical sweets before, John won't bring any home,'

'John?' Asked Sirius,

'My brother, left Hogwarts last year'

James and Emily bought the rest of the trolly between them, and all 3 sat munching happily for a few minutes, but then Sirius said;

'What house do you want to be in, then, I want to be in Gryffindor, but it's probably more likely I'm in Slytherin, with my heritage.

'Slytherin? But you don't _look_ evil and malicious, and you don't hate me do you,'

'Yeah, but everyone of my family would,' said Sirius, glumly, 'So, where are you heading'

'I think maybe ravenclaw, you know, "_wit beyond measure I'm a mans greatest treasure_", my brother went there, but I'm not sure if I care enough about exams and stuff to fit in, Slytherin are just evil, and hufflepuff... Who really wants to be in a house that takes all the leftovers who weren't brave, smart or cunning enough! Gryffindor sounds good, brave to the point of stupidity and reckless sounds like me!'

'I'm going to Gryffindor,' James again mimed lifting an invisible sword and Sirius rolled his eyes, '_Where dwell the brave at heart'_

'Yeah, yeah, let's just hope we all do manage to get into Gryffindor, I wonder how they sort us?'

The rest of the train journey passed without event, and soon they we're arriving at Hogwarts.

**...**

**A/N: No-one reviewed so I took my self allocated time of 3 days to post. It probablywould have been sooner, but I'm always busy on weekends. Review for an update in the next 24 hours, and enjoy.**

**MaraudersForever62**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N I know that this chapter and the last one have been slightly shorter than usual, and i will have a longer one up tomorrow. Also, it kind of saddens me that of the 6 followers and 4 favourites on this story, not one person had bothered to review to get an update quicker.**

As James, Emily and Sirius jumped off the Hogwarts Express, they heard a voice coming from what was either a very large man or a small tree.

'First years this way, all first years to me.' Hagrid shouted, his voice easily carrying though the noise of the students.

They followed Hagrid past the upper years and to the lake, where several boats sat bobbing in the water waiting.

'No more than 4 to a boat.' Hagrid said climbing into one. He had a boat to himself and he only just fit.

James, Emily and Sirius were near the back of the line of first years following Hagrid so by the time they reached the boat nearly every one was full. A lone boy sat in a boat, he had brown hair and brown eyes with amber specks in them, he looked exhausted and there were several scratches on his face. As they climbed into his boat he barely noticed them.

Just as they were waiting for everyone to get in a boat, Emily noticed something.

'I can't believe it!' She exclaimed, looking at the boat next to them, 'We're not even at Hogwarts yet and already the bullying's started.'

Sure enough, there was a mousy boy, Peter, who had tried to climb into a boat housing Avery and Mulciber. As Peter had arrived he had looked for the most intimidating people around,eager to make a good impression, these people usually liked adoration and compliments, but Avery and Mulciber seemed to think that Peter was insulting them instead.

Peter had backed into the corner of the boat, terrified, while Avery and Mulciber we're taunting him.

'Whats the matter, going to go crying to your mummy?'

'Yeah, your filthy Mudblood mother!'

'Oh, look, I think he's wet himself already'

But at this point James, Emily and Sirius, all of whom had jumped out of their boat to help had reached them.

'Shut up.' Sirius commanded, brandishing his wand.

Emily looked at the wand with contempt, Sirius didn't even know how to use it yet, it would be much more effective to use fists.

'Come on,' She said kindly to Peter, 'Join our boat'

Peter looked extremely grateful, and was looking at Sirius wand with admiration and fear. Emily snorted. The worst thing that thing could do in the hands of Sirius was hit someone in the face. Emily and Peter walked away while James and Sirius stood still, wands out, as if daring Avery and Mulciber to come after them.

When they had returned to their boat, Hagrid shouted across to them.

'Theres 5 of you there, only 4 to a boat.'

James looked at Emily, then gave a mischievous grin

'Can you swim?' He asked, 'With clothes on?'

'Yeah,' Emily answered, 'Why?'

'Brilliant, I can't do this, they'd recognise me, but I've thought of something.' James told Emily and Sirius what to do and Emily went to join a boat with Lily and Severus in. She introduced herself, knowing perfectly well who they were as James and Sirius had recounted there meeting to her on the train.

Hagrid, who was now convinced all the boats had the correct amount of pupils, gave the command and the boat set off.

Emily started to rock slightly, not enough so they would notice, she just shifted her centre of gravity from one side to another. Before long the boat was rocking and Lily was getting suspicious. Finally she seemed to notice it was Emily rocking the boat.

'Stop it,' she hissed at Emily, 'you're going to tip the boat'

'That would be the general idea, yes' Emily replied in an amused voice.

Lily's eyes widened and Snape looked outraged.

'STOP,' Lily shouted, the boat was becoming harder and harder to stay in, they were already clinging to the sides, 'HAGR-'

Lily's plea for help had been interrupted, Emily had suddenly stood up in her boat, causing it to tip over completely. Although they had been unnoticed before, quite a few people were looking at them now. Lily and Snape tried to stay afloat, and Emily made her slow way towards the boat carrying Sirius and James, who were currently trying not to pee themselves. Emily made it look as if she were drifting towards them, it would look a little suspicious if she was swimming, so when the Giant Squids tentacle appeared to hoist her into a boat, she was placed easily into James boat. The five of them sitting together in a boat, one sopping wet, James told Remus and Peter, who had been watching with growing interest, what had happened. By the time they had arrived at Hogwarts, Remus no longer had a tired worn look on his face, and Peter's watery eyes were shining.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N Thank You Chris, for reviewing. Twice! I would post 2 new chapters, but that seems kind if pointless so I've just posted a double length one instead. Enjoy, and review for more!

As they were standing in the entrance hall, waiting for professor McGonagall to collect them for the sorting, Emily was starting to regret that she was sopping wet, people were already staring at her, and James and Sirius were wasting no time in telling them what happened. They seemed to enjoy the attention.

As James was embellishing the story, telling people that Snivellus had wet himself when the giant squid picked him up, there was a shout from above and the first years looked up to see Peeves, armed with water balloons. Cackling loudly, peeves dropped the water balloons, and each one of them hit a target, even those who were already wet, such as Emily and Lily.

'Look at the firsties, tiny and wet-' Peeves began in an annoying sing-songy voice.

Professor McGonagall suddenly appeared at the door looking furious.

'PEEVES,' she yelled 'Get down here NOW.'

Still cackling madly, peeves zoomed away, apparently he didn't answer to professor McGonagall. Professor McGonagall just seemed glad peeves had left.

James and Sirius looked at each other for a moment,

'We have a poltergeist!' James exclaimed.

'Wicked!' Sirius agreed, his eyes glinting with possibilities. Remus shook his head in disbelief.

'How can you be exited,' he said bemusedly, 'he just soaked you.'

'Yeah, but mate, POLTERGEIST,' Sirius said exasperatedly, as if this explained all.

They didn't have time to take the conversation further, however, because they had reached the front of the hall, and there was a sudden rip as the old hat siting on a stool opened a flap. It began to sing:

_Welcome to Hogwarts, I'll tell where you belong_

_For I'm made to split you up_

_And I am never wrong_

_Into the four houses all of you will fit._

_But the question always is_

_O, Where will you go?_

_Just put me on your head_

_For only I do know._

_Do you belong in Gryffindor,_

_Where dwell the brave at heart_

_Their daring and their chivalry_

_Will give you a good start_

_Or shall Ravenclaw be good for you_

_Because wit beyond measure,_

_These Ravenclaws believe_

_Is a mans greatest treasure._

_Will you go to Hufflepuff,_

_Who are always loyal and just_

_Those who represent the badger_

_Will never betray your trust_

_Should you reside in Slytherin_

_Where the cunning mind do strife_

_Their ambition and self-preservation_

_Will get you far in life._

_Just place me on your head_

_And I will look inside your mind_

_Once your minds have been read_

_The sorting will commence!_

Cheering and clapping broke out from the school and Professor McGonagall began to read out names from a long scroll of parchment.

'Toby Abbot'

A nervous looking boy with short blond hair made his way up to the sorting hat.

'HUFFLEPUFF'

'Avery, Jace'

'SLYTHERIN'

'Black, Sirius'

Sirius made his way up to the sorting hat. He knew this was when his new found friendships would be cut off. He would end up in Slytherin, he knew it. It was all very good telling himself that he would be different, but he knew it wouldn't matter. Andromeda Black had been different, she was still a Slytherin. Alfred Black, his uncle, was DEFINITELY not like the rest of the family, but he had still been a Slytherin.

With a heavy heart, Sirius sat down and Professor McGonagall dropped the hat onto his head.

'Another Black i see,' a voice said into his ear, 'well, you're always easy to place-' the sorting hat had just been about to call out Slytherin when Sirius interrupted it.

'WAIT,'he shouted frantically, feeling very stupid for talking to a hat, but deciding that the situation called for it, 'i don't want to be in Slytherin.'

'Oh?' The sorting hat sounded surprised, 'And why would that be'

'I-' Sirius began.

'No, no need to speak, I can see all of your arguments right here. So, you don't want to give your mother the satisfaction,hmmm,very _sly_, don't you think, _very Slytherin_. No? Ok, your other reasons, let me see, you are certain your friends will go to Gryffindor, why so sure, you _trust_ your friends, maybe I was wrong, maybe you belong in Hufflepuff. Loyal like a dog, I see. No? Not that either? I suppose you could go to Ravenclaw, you are certainly smart enough, But you lack the thirst for knowledge... Gryffindor would fit you the best, of course, you are competitive and reckless, brave and chivalrous, of course the first two are often displayed by Slytherin, but, no matter you don't want Slytherin. You _could_ be a Gryffindor, but do you want to. A Black in Gryffindor, really?'

'Yes.' Thought Sirius defiantly, 'That is what I want'

'Very well... GRYFFINDOR'

There was no clapping. The hall seemed to be in a state of shock. Professor Slughorn look depressed and only Dumbledore seemed to be in control. Feeling numb, Sirius walked to the Gryffindor table where there was empty space ready for the first years. He sat down heavily, only just realising he was dry. He looked at the headmaster, who was eyeing him with interest, and realised that Dumbledore was performing drying charms on the first years.

'Bones, Amelia'

'RAVENCLAW'

A few more names past before one was familiar.

'Evans, Lily'

'GRYFFINDOR'

Sirius looked up in surprise, he had expected her to end up in Slytherin with Snivellus. He made room next to him, which she gratefully took, before she realised who he was. Not bothering to mask her look of disgust and contempt, she turned away.

More names were called and soon it was:

'Lupin, Remus'

Remus walked up to the hat. This was where the hat would find out what he was and tell him that didn't have a house, that Hogwarts didn't house werewolves. He was sure of it.

The hat was dropped onto his head.

'Hello,' a voice said into his ear, 'What have we here, aha, a werewolf. No don't worry, you don't have to leave, you definitely have a house, let's see, Ravenclaw, you're fit in well there, but the friends you make might not be loyal enough to accept you, I can't see how that would end well. Loyalty, it's very important, you seem to posses a great deal of it, but somehow I don't think you would fit in Hufflepuff either, no, not very ambitious or competitive, Hufflepuff. And you are, ambition, hmmm, well that would be Slytherin, but they _definitely_ wouldn't accept you. One more option I see, yes, Gryffindor, you'de fit in well, brave and determined, and you have friends in Gryffindor as well, I only see one option, do you agree?'

'YES!' Thought Remus, elated. He was accepted into Hogwarts!

'GRYFFINDOR'

Remus walked down to the Gryffindor table, barely resisting the urge to skip there.

'Hey, Remus.' Sirius said, delighted that one of his new friends was in Gryffindor.

'Hi,' Remus responded, still feeling slightly lightheaded, 'So you made it to Gryffindor, Congratulations.'

'You too,' Sirius responded, but suddenly the hall went silent again and they looked up to find out why.

'Mulciber, Michael' had just been sorted into Slytherin, and his twin sister 'Mulciber, Amy' had just been sorted into Gryffindor, to the surprise of everyone even Dumbledore, it seemed.

While some of the school discussed this in an undertone, more names were called out. Finally, it came up to the 'P's and 'Patterson, Emily' had been called up to the stool.

The sorting hat dropped on her head and began to whisper into her ear. She jumped violently, no one had told her it would talk.

'Well, what have we got here. A muggle born i see, couldn't go in Slytherin, even if you were ambitious enough. Wouldn't fit in Ravenclaw I don't think, or Hufflepuff, the loyalty is there but I'm afraid to say you are rather afraid of toil.'

'Let me get this straight, I'm not ambitious enough for Slytherin, too dumb for Ravenclaw and too lazy for Hufflepuff! Can I go anywhere?' Emily thought annoyed at the hats lack of helpfulness, she could have digured that much herself.

Well, yes, you could be in Ravenclaw, if you wanted, but i see that you have no desire to work or study while you're here, and I assume you don't want to be in Slytherin anyway?'

'Oh,' thought Emily, mollified slightly, 'But I'm still to lazy for Hufflepuff!?'

'Yes you are,' before she could send any other angry thoughts its way the sorting hat continued. 'You would fit well in Gryffindor I think, very reckless and extremely daring, what's this about throwing yourself in the lake. You wanted to sit with your friends? And your friends are there already, yes, I do think you are a Gryffindor.

Before Emily could utter another word the sorting hat proclaimed,

'GRYFFINDOR.'

Emily walked to the Gryffindor table, greeted Sirius and Remus, and her attention was quickly drawn away to the small plump boy who walked, trembling, up to the school.

Peter was surprised when the sorting hat began to talk to him, but not as surprised as he was to hear what is said.

'Hmm... Yes, plenty of potential, you are loyal, but also have a high sense of self-preservation. You would do well in Slytherin. Hufflepuff too maybe, you would do anything for a true friend. You would not fit in Ravenclaw. But you have friends in Gryffindor? You don't make friends easily, I see, so I think you should stay together. You might do well in Gryffindor, I think Hufflepuff may be promising for you but, if you had no one... Yes, Gryffindor definitely.

Before Peter had time to comprehend what the sorting hat had said, it loudly proclaimed

"GRYFFINDOR" and he found himself walking towards the Gryffindor table.

'You got in!' Emily whispered excitedly, before tuning back to James, who was strutting up to the sorting hat confidently. After a moment it was clear why he was not worried. The sorting hat was barely on his head when it proclaimed his house.

'AHA! A Potter! Made for Gryffindor, the lot of you'

James smiled internally.

'GRYFFINDOR'

James strutted towards the Gryffindor table and the last few names were called out.

...


	8. Chapter 8

...

Once the feast had ended, a prefect led them up to Gryffindor tower, and told them the password was 'leo fortissimus,' and he also informed them on where the dormitories were. Emily and the others split up to go to there separate dormitories.

She was just wondering when her she would have to get her trunk when she found that it had already been moved to her bed. Her bed was the cosset to the exit, but the furthest from the bathroom. Next to bathroom, sat on her own bed was the girl that had shocked the school almost as much as Sirius.

'Hi,' Emily said, shyly. She wasn't a naturally shy person, but all her friends had been boys in her previous school, and she wasn't entirely sure how to make friends with girls.

Amy Mulciber was talking to a girl next to her, Sophie Ogden. When Emily spoke to her, she shot her the filthiest look possible and whispered into Sophie's ear. They both giggled.

Emily raised her eyebrows. Bitchiness was something she could deal with. Much better than emotions. She shuddered internally. Emily turned round to see who else was in here. If it was just these 2 than she was screwed, but to her relief, she saw 2 other girls. One she already knew about, Lily Evans and the other, the one sleeping on the bed next to hers, Mary McDonald. Apparently forgetting that she didn't like Emily, Sirius or James, Lily spoke to her:

'She's been like this for ages, it's not just you. She screamed when I accidentally brushed past her.'

Mary McDonald contined, 'Erm... No offence meant, but are both of you muggle-borns?' She paused as they both nodded, 'Well, she does come from a long line of pureblood maniacs, I'm just suprised she wasn't put in Slytherin if she's this prejudiced.'

'Ah, so she has a reason. She doesn't just hate me because I've annoyed her somehow. That's a relief.' Emily said. When Lily and Mary looked surprised she expanded. 'I mean, if she hates me because I'm muggle-born then she is less likely to try and speak to me later. I can't change my blood status, but so many people like to think I change my personality, and try to speak to me even when they've established that were not friends. It's very confusing. At least that's one person I don't have to pretend to like.'

With that final, confusing, statement she left the room to go and see what James, Sirius, Remus and Peter were doing. Apparently, the boys had had the same idea, because when she approached the staircase, she was surprised to see it had turned into a slide. She slid down it, knocking over James and Sirius, who were about 2 meters up, precariously balanced and trying to scale it further. They all landed at a tangled heap at the bottom. When they had managed to get up, and Remus and Peter had stopped laughing, Sirius immediately demanded,

'Why can't we get up there?'

'I have no idea' Emily answered, 'but I'm pretty sure trying to climb up it is not the answer.'

Remus sighed, 'did none of you read 'Hogwarts; A History'? Boys can't get to the girls dormitory.'

'And why not?' Demanded Sirius again. But James had thought of something else.

'But they can come up to ours?' He asked. When Remus shrugged he began propelling Emily towards their staircase. When they reached it, and discovered that Emily could enter, Sirius started muttering about 'privacy issues' and 'beauty sleep.'

As they accented the stairs James seemed to think of something else,

'Wait!' He said suddenly, when they had reached the boys dormitory, 'there is a spell that can turn stairs into slides!'

'That could be fun,' Sirius agreed.

'We need to find it, though,' Emily said, 'and it's probably difficult to do as well.'

'It would be worth it' James insisted, 'We could learn it.'

'I know the spell, it's in Hogwarts; A History, but I can't remember it, I'll look tomorrow.' Remus put in.

'Why not today?' Sirius asked, yawning.

'Im too tired and it's in the bottom of my trunk, look Peter's already crashed.' Remus said, pointing to a snoring, fully clothed, Peter on the end bed. Emily eyelids were heavy, now she came to think about it she was really tired.

'Yeah, tomorrow,' she agreed, 'night.'

She walked back to dormitory, glad she didn't have to scale a slide, and wasn't surprised to see all the occupants asleep in bed. She quickly got changed and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Sirius and James didn't bother to get changed, though Remus did, they simply lay down, and were asleep within a few seconds. It had been a long day.

...

**A/N: please review for an update**


	9. Chapter 9

WAKE UP! SLEEPY HEADS! Time get UP!' Mary McDonald was yelling at her room mates.

Emily groaned. It was 6:30 on a Monday morning. 6:30. She hated morning people. And mornings. And people. But as she turned over in her bed, with full intentions to go back to sleep, her brain was assaulted again by the relentless screams.

Emily groaned again, and finally sat up. Next morning she would have to put silencing charms on her 4 poster bed. Or just put a silencing charm on Mary.

Emily got dressed quickly, dragged a brush through her short brown hair, and was slightly perplexed as to why Mary was sat on her bed, fully clothed and ready to go, now that she had stopped shouting.

'Why haven't you left?' She asked, trying not to sound too rude.

'I don't want to go alone! I'm waiting for Lily.' Mary replied. Emily sighed. She'd forgotten. Girls normally travelled in packs. She walked down to the Gryffindor common room, taking her charms book with her with her. She intended to try to perfect her silencing charm.

This was how James found her 1 hour later, having been roused by Remus, sat in a chair, book held limply in one hand, wand in the other, fast asleep.

James crept back upstairs to bring down the others. This was too good an opportunity to miss. While he explained to Sirius, Remus and Peter what he had just seen, he was rooting around in his trunk. Finally he brought out an small horn shaped thing.

'Aha!' James cried triumphantly, 'I got it over the summer at my last quidditch game,'

They crept downstairs, looking incredibly guilty, and blew the magically loud horn right into Emily's ear. What James hadn't been expecting was Emily, who had managed to produce a half decent silencing charm, to jump up and silence him.

As Sirius, Remus and Peter fell about laughing at James outraged expression, Emily was trying to look apologetic, but the effect was somewhat ruined by her laughter as well.

'Sorry,' she said, 'I have really good reflexes'

James made a gesture, and he needed no words to clarify what he was implying.

'We should probably reverse it,' suggested Remus, still smiling.

'Do we have to,' whined Sirius, 'I like him so much better like this.' Sirius ducked James punch.

'I don't think we can anyway,' said Emily dubiously, looking through her charms book, 'I've not learnt that bit yet.'

James looked horrified.

'Well, I guess we've learnt the first lesson at Hogwarts, and it is true its motto.' Remus again sighed at there blank looks as he continued, 'Do not wake the sleeping dragon.'

'I think it's actually "Do not tickle the sleeping dragon"' Peter squeaked, looking pleased to know something.

Remus was about to argue that to tickle would normally ensure in it waking up, when Emily cut in.

'Tickle me, and I will not be held responsible for your injuries, however serious they may be.'

...

The first week at Hogwarts flew by, and by the end of it, it was clear that each and every one of them were good at a particular subject.

James was amazing at transfiguration, Sirius brilliant at defence against the dark arts, Emily a natural at charms, Remus exceptional at potions, and even Peter was good at herbology.

Unfortunately for Sirius and Emily however, their subject teachers were not as fond of them as they were of the subject. On Monday, first period, when James silencing jinx had finally worn off, they headed off to charms. To be fair, they might not have made the best impression by being 10 minutes late, owing to the fact they had got lost. Sirius had been sent a Howler at breakfast earlier that morning, and had stormed off. By the time the other had caught up to him and calmed him down, they had realised they had no idea where they were. James was just about to say that they wished they were given maps for this place when they entered the charms room, and all his thoughts were swept away.

'And where have you been!' Demanded professor Hecate, when the 5 children entered the room.

'Got lost,' Remus supplied, thinking they couldn't really get into trouble. This was there first lesson, and the castle was massive. But instead of just being directed to there seats like Remus had expected, Professor Hecate's face twisted to form an unpleasant smirk.

'Well then,' He started, he had been waiting for this opportunity, since the lesson had began, 'I expect you not to be lost for your detention, in my office, Friday 5:30'

Remus looked outraged, but Emily, Sirius and James only had a look of faint annoyance on their faces.

'But professor,' James began eagerly.

'Which one of us got the detention first?' Sirius interjected.

'It was me wasn't it, professor? Because I was in the classroom first?' Emily asked.

'No it wasn't you it was me!'

'Shut up Sirius, I was clearly here first!'

'What are you on about?!' professor Hecate asked outraged. This wasn't how he expected his detentions to go down. They were supposed to act as a reminder to the rest of the students not to misbehave in his class.

'You ruined our bet, Sir,' James explained, as Sirius and Emily were still arguing.

'What BET,' Hecate spat, spraying James with a thin layer of spittle.

'Who could get a detention first,' James said, making a pointed display of wiping his face. Sirius and Emily had finally stopped arguing, they had agreed it would be the second detention that would win. But then Hecate had to ruin it again.

'Well, you three can all have another detention, on the Saturday,'

'REALLY!' Said Emily exasperated, 'are you doing this on purpose! And why did you leave Peter and Remus out?'

'I think they want to be left out, mate,'James said, indicating to Remus and Peter, who were sitting down at there desks, heads down.

'Well, I made the bet, so I think I got THIS detention first,'

'No, Sirius, he said all 3 of us,' James said.

'So?'

'So that means all 3 of us,'

'RIGHT, THAT IS ENOUGH!' Hecate screamed. Then she took a calm composing breath and them continued, ' , and , you will see me on Friday and Saturday in my office at 500. And you, and , will accompany them on Friday. Now please take your seats.'

'5 galleons the detentions are something disgusting,' muttered Sirius under his breath as they walked towards where Remus and Peter were sat.

'Nah, it'll be something to do with Hagrid's many animals,' James whispered back.

'Its probably both,' Emily said, and noticing the treacherous look on Professor Hecate's face, they said nothing more.

...


	10. Chapter 10

Defence against the dark arts went only slightly better. Depending on how you looked at it. For Remus it was terrible, for the others it was just irritating.

They entered the classroom, on time, purely because they had followed a group of hufflepuffs and hoped they were in the same class.

When they entered they took there seats, Remus and Emily next to each other with Peter James and Sirius directly in front of them.

The class began with their new teacher, professor Nocere outlining what they would be learning that year. Unfortunately she decided to linger on the subject of dark creatures.

'Now class, the most dangerous and ferocious dark creature are werewolves. Never trust a werewolf and if you meet one, kill it immediately or alert the ministry. They are a danger to our society and deserve to die.' She began her hate speech maliciously, her eyes penetrating Remus, who had gone a deep shade of red. Emily glanced at him, and wondered Why he was interpreting a beet root.

"Many people may labour under the belief that werewolves are people and lose their conscience at full moon. This Is A Lie. They are evil and lose there conscience when they are bitten. Any werewolf living is technically an illegal citizen as if they were properly registered, they would be dead. Werewolves Are Criminals.'

At this James, Sirius and Peter started to mess about on paper, since they were at the back of the class. They had figured the teacher was going to waffle on all lesson and thought she really didn't know what she was on about anyway.

Emily would have tuned out as well, but Remus was practically radiating anger next to her. She didn't know what was among him so angry, but it had started with the werewolves. She didn't want her new quiet friend to explode on a teacher, as he would probably regret it later, so she decided the time was right to get another detention. After all getting one in nearly every lesson they were late for, the bet had quickly changed to how many detentions they could achieve by the end of the week, and Sirius was winning.

Emily raised her hand. Professor Nocere glared at her, or in her direction, as she waved her hand about in the air innocently.

'Yes?' Professor Nocere asked and his voice was sharp and irritated.

'Well, professor,' Emily began sweetly, the voice she was using always annoyed teachers, it did sound rather patronising when you came to know Emily, there was nothing sweet or innocent about her. 'IF werewolves are really dangerous and not normal human beings, could you please tell me how to IDENTIFY a werewolf.'

Next to her, unnoticed by the class, Remus bowed his head, he thought he would be safe on this until at least year 3. Apparently not.

'Miss. Patterson, perhaps if you had read the material provided to you, or simply bothered to open your books at all during the summer, I am sure you would know the answer to this! Maybe you ought to-' Professor Nocere was interrupted by Emily yet again.

'Yes, I know what is in the book, it's all about the amber eyes and tufted tail, but all of these signs are only relevant to the werewolf form, which only happens once a month. If werewolves truly were 'dangerous,' surely there would be other signs apart from they're unfortunate transformation. I ask you this because you are a teacher for defence against the dark arts. With the worthless information you have provided with us so far, the person sitting next to me could be a werewolf, and apparently 'endangering me' and unless they transformed right now and I had time to look into their eyes before they ate me, we'd never know?'

Remus inwardly, if Emily knew how true here words had been, she would probably run screaming. Or the others would. After hearing her 'speech' he wasn't entirely sure what her reaction would be.

This was the longest Emily had spoken at once since entering Hogwarts, and even James and Sirius had noticed the dangerous edge to her tone. Just by hearing that, you could tell that Emily hated prejudice of any kind. What didn't take much to notice was Nocere's face, which appeared to be turning purple with rage. Emily sat back and waited confidently. She had expertly planted her mines, now all she had to do was wait for the explosion.

It didn't disappoint her. Within moments Nocere was letting off a stream of incoherent words under his breath before seeming to come to his senses and speak English again.

'MISS. PATTERSON FOR YOUR IGNORANCE, INCOMPETENCE AND DISRESPECT, YOU SHALL HAVE 3 DETENTIONS WITH ME. AND YOU MR. LUPIN.' Professor Nocere screeched. At Remus surprised and outraged expression, she smiled in triumph and composed herself a bit. 'Dont look so innocent, you know DEEP DOWN you deserve them.'

Emily was also outraged, bit for a different reason. She was, of course, annoyed that she had dragged Remus down with her, not for the typical reason of the fact he didn't deserve the detentions. She was annoyed because if Remus hadn't gotten them, when he did nothing to help enrage Nocere, she might have gotten 5 detentions in stead of 3. She needed 5 to put her in front if Sirius. It looked like some of her mines would have to be triggered by hand.

Nocere had noticed Emily's dark expression, and continued smugly. 'So, detention, let me see... Friday, Saturday and Sunday.'

'Busy.' Emily said in a bored tone.

Professor Nocere stared at her. 'The time of the detention does not bend around the will of the pupil. You will see me on each of these days when you are busy or not!'

'Im. Busy. And so is Remus.'

'I don't care, you will see me there even if I have to drag you.'

Emily smiled. It was working. 'Do you lead a house Professor? No? Well then, you have no right to be pulling me out of other detentions, especially ones set by heads of houses.'

'You can't have that many detentions already,' Professor Nocere spluttered, 'this is the only the 4TH day!'

'Sorry for not really caring,' Emily said, opening her calendar and looking at the detentions she had.

'Well then, as you are clearly BUSY, you can make up for it by doing double the amount instead. Emily barely hid a smile. Teachers were so easy to manipulate. She had over shot by one detention, but she didn't really care.

'Now,' Nocere seemed to ask this reluctantly, 'when are you free?'

By the time they had arranged detentions the class was over. Some of the Hufflepuffs looked annoyed, but James Sirius and Peter were practically bouncing as they laughed about the lesson. Remus found he had actually enjoyed that lesson. He had no-idea why. Maybe it was because James Sirius and Peter had tuned out when the hate had started, showing they weren't prejudiced themselves. Or maybe it was because Emily had stuck up for him, even if it was inadvertently and she had no way of knowing how much it actually meant. Even though he had one away with 3 detentions, Remus found that it was a reasonable price to pay for the bonds in friendship that they seemed to have gained.

...


	11. Chapter 11

The final Sunday morning of there first week saw them looking up the spell to turn the stairs into slides. They had meant to do it earlier but there hadn't seemed to be enough time. In between getting lost, annoying teachers and serving the many record breaking detentions they had earned, they had barely had a spare moment.

After a few minutes Remus found it, and they all immediately practiced it. Without specific wand movements it was hard, but they mastered it after a couple of hours.

'Good, we've got the spell, now how the hell do set restrictions,' James asked, 'we need to hurry up we have a detention at 5:00!'

'Its simple, see,' Remus said pointing at the book and sighing, 'Just say what you ant it to do immediately after the spell, but it has to be clear.'

They practised for a few minutes on the boys dormitory staircase, until they could ban practically everything. The good thing about Hogwarts statues was that they were so steep, no one could scale the slide with ease.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to pull there master prank. They wanted a full day, and it was 4:00 already. They had also decided to pull it on a weekend, due to the fact that then the teachers wouldn't feel complied to change it back to quickly. But, with one hour to spare, James decided to address an issue that had been annoying him all week.

'I wish they'd give us maps of this place,' he sighed, 'I always get lost!'

'Its unplottable, they can't.' Peter explained, he too wanted a map, and had gone in search of one, which was why he knew this.

'The outside of the castle it, not the inside.' Remus said, again wondering if any of his friends were ever going to read Hogwarts: A History, 'they could give us maps but I don't think they can be bothered.'

'We should make one,' Emily added. Then as an afterthought she said 'I'm not writing. I can't draw. The castle would probably end up looking like a blob.'

'I can draw.' Peter volunteered. James through him a piece of parchment.

'We can do the Gryffindor tower first, and then go out at night to plot the rest.'

'Won't we get caught?' Sirius questioned, but his expression told them that he was relishing the challenge.

'Not if use my invisibility cloak.' James had revealed his cloak to them earlier in the week, but they hadn't had a reason to use it after hours before now.

'I don't think we'll all fit,' Emily said dubiously.

'We can just leave you outside,' Sirius teased.

'Yeah, you move like your invisible already.' James finished.

Remus smiled, but then thought of Professor McGonagall's expression when they had gotten lost on the way back to the dormitory, and knew that Emily not being under the cloak wasn't an option.

'I'll cast some expansion charms underneath.' Remus said, after a moment of consideration. They practiced this underneath the cloak until they were satisfied with the result, then realised it was 4:55 and they were at least 10 minutes away from there detention.

Although they ran the whole way, they got lost again and ended up being 10 minutes late for the detention, the result being they earned a another one.

It never seemed to end for James, Sirius, Emily, Remus and Peter.

...


	12. Chapter 12

Sadly, the next weekend they had flying lessons and there wasn't enough time to pull there master prank on the whole school, so they just had to stick with minor pranks, like turning Snivellus' hair pink during potions. Lily had looked angry, but Emily was surprised to see that she had to hide a smile when she calmed down and looked at the luminous head of hair.

The map was coming along amazing, in there night time wanderings, they had mapped out at least half of the castle, and found secret passages and shortcuts. Rather than having to set of 10 minutes early for class, they found they could generally get there in half the time now. In fact, knowledge of the school was not the only thing they had acquired under the cloak. On Sunday night, after a day of vigorous flying lessons, they had ventured under the clock once more, but Peter had dropped their map he had been using. Now, walking under an invisibility cloak isn't easy under the best of circumstances, but when there is five of you, and one of you abruptly stops and bends over, everything will go to hell.

Peter stopped, Remus bumped into him and leered sideways, causing Emily to trip over the cloak and half smother James and Sirius under it. When Emily had removed her foot, and Peter had gotten up from the ground,Markus and James emerged, seemingly out of thin air, both red faced.

'What on earth was that all about!' Sirius demanded, loudly.

'Shhhh,' Emily hissed, hearing footsteps from at least a corridor away. Sirius swore she had bat ears. 'Quick under the cloak!'

Unfortunately the expansion charms that had allowed them to fit had been destroyed when the cloak no longer had a form. As Remus recast them, Emily and James waited impatiently in full view.

'JUST WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING!' Thundered Professor McGonagall, making her way towards them. She looked at them for a moment sternly, it wasn't exactly uncommon for her to find a boy and a girl out together after they had been told to sleep but they weren't normally first years .

James and Emily had sprang away from the cloak like it was burning, not wishing to get the other into trouble as well. Sirius nearly rushed to join them, he couldn't afford for them to get loads more detentions without him, but a sharp elbow in the ribs from Remus brought him back to his senses. They couldn't let McGonagall know they had an invisibility cloak.

'Ermm...' James said, going red.

'We were just...' Emily continued,

'Verb Verb VERB!' James thought to himself, 'Walking!' He burst out. From inside the cloak Sirius brought his hand to his face.

'Walking!' Professor McGonagall repeated, 'it is 12:30 at night, what are you doing walking! You do not walk at 12:30 you SLEEP at 12:30. Honestly, you're marauding around the castle at night like a bunch of...' McGonagall spluttered in her rage, trying to find the right word, 'Marauders!'

Remus could practically see the light bulb ding above Sirius' head. Professor McGonagall ranted on for a few more minutes before giving them 5 detentions each and escorting them back to Gryffindor tower. Peter, Remus and Sirius followed behind, trying desperately not to make a sound.

They entered the common room silently after McGonagall had left and headed straight up for the boys dormitory.

'How could you?' Began Sirius, looking at Emily and James.

'MARAUDING around the school like that!' Remus continued,

'So, since you young MARAUDERS obviously have MARAUDING needs, we present to you, the very nearly finished MARAUDERS MAP!'

'So we're the marauders now?' Emily asked, eyebrows raised.

'Yep!' Sirius answered, 'I must thank Minnie in the morning.'

'Minnie?' James questioned.

'Professor McGonagall. Her name is Minerva.' Sirius explained.

Remus sighed. 'How do you even know that?'

'I have my ways,' Sirius said mysteriously.

...

The next week flew by, each of them making sure they didn't have any detentions for that Saturday. It was fairly simple, most of the teacher were forced to ask when they where free for detention, as not to clash with other detentions. Remus had a small calendar which he used to organise them. All they had to so is tell the teachers that they already had a detention on that day. It was risky, of course, as most of the teachers would see that they weren't really busy when it came to Saturday, but by then it would be too late.

On the marauders map, in disappearing ink so it wouldn't stay there forever, they highlighted all stair cases and labelled what the requirements were to go up it. At 4:00 in the morning Emily rose from bed. She had set an alarm and put up silencing charms around her bed so no-one else would hear it.

She got dressed quickly, Hogwarts was massive and with all the hindering staircases they might not make it back to Gryffindor tower quick enough to get changed later. She made her way to the boys dormitory, grumbling quietly about the charm on the girls staircase, that prevented one of the other marauders waking HER up instead. Opening the door and waking the others, she waited outside the door until they were dressed.

'Feels weird to be awake this early.' Mumbled James, walking into the door frame instead of through the door on his way to the bathroom.

Remus splashed him with cold water, 'I don't think your actually awake yet, how the hell did you manage to put your robe on backwards!'

'On, yeah, sorry.' James removed his robe and put it on the right way round. They exited the room to find Emily waiting impatiently outside.

'Good your here. It took you long enough, isn't it supposed to be girls that take forever getting changed.'

'It didn't take me that long but these three,' Remus indicated and James Sirius and Peter, 'fell asleep again as soon as you left.' Sirius smiled sheepishly. Emily made her way down the stairs, and when she was at the bottom she muttered something, pointing her wand at the stairs. She the proceeded to go back up again, only for the stairs to be turned into a slide. The other marauders were all coming down the stairs at this point, and when it transformed, they were taken out and slid down, glaring at Emily.

Emily chuckled, 'it's going to be a fun day.'

...

review for an update, sorry for the short chapter last time, but I did update 2 in a day.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Thanks For your reviews! It made me really happy to get 2 reviews on 1 chapter. If you don't care skip the rest of the author note. In response:**

**_Guest_: It disappointed me as well. Thank you for your support, and your review, I won't tell you who'll figure out first, but it won't be too soon. I'll let them wonder for a bit more. I don't really think Emily needs girl friends really. She might have some later in the story, but the differences between boys and girls at 11 are minimal. In my opinion, I don't think you can be friends with Lily and a marauder at the same time, or James would have been closer to Lily, and then the whole plot goes way off canon.**

**_KiyUzimaki: _thanks for the long review! Thank you so much for pointing out that my story repeated its self. I hadn't even noticed! I wasn't doing it on purpose. Dont worry about the marauders map, I don't plan on them completing it for quite a few years, but I needed to introduce it now, as I don't think fifth years would start to randomly make a map of the castle.**

By 7:30 they had finished charming the staircases, and had some fun with them before anyone else got up. They has split into 2 groups but frequently crossed paths and swapped. There were many restrictions on staircases, for example, around a specific classroom, the aspects of the teacher were blocked. Around McGonagall's classroom the stair cases didn't let a one up who was either, over 40, had long hair, girls, gryffindors and other funny aspects. Many staircases targeted the slytherins and some just physical appearance, much to Lily's annoyance, one of the staircases James had charmed wouldn't let anyone ginger up at all.

As he grinned down at a her from the top of the staircase, she seemed to realise it had been him.

'Having fun, Evans?' James grinned as Lily took out at least 6 people currently climbing the stairs by turning it into a slide.

'Did YOU do this?' She demanded. Lily didn't like James, or any of the marauders apart from Remus. The arrogant marauders couldn't fathom a reason why, so just took delight in annoying her.

'Yep!' James answered cheerily, 'but I wouldn't bother trying to get up, not unless you dye your hair,'

Lily let out an earsplitting screech. 'POTTER!'

James ran down the hallway which they were camping on. Nothing was persuading the marauders to venture on the staircases before they had to, so they were just enjoying watching for now. This corridor had the most stair cases leading to it, so they wanted to observe thief efforts before experiencing them themselves.

He found Emily and Sirius sat on the banisters of a particularly interesting staircase. This was commonly used so they had made it possible for everyone to get up, just extremely difficult.

The catch was, you had to have no emotion, and no sight. If anyone was too exited when they thought they had approached the end, or simply opened they're eyes before they exited the staircase, it would turn into a slide and they would all go tumbling down. Emily and Sirius were laughing they're heads off. Maybe it would have been easier if the students went at different times, but one person making a mistake generally brought down several wraiths upon them.

'ZABINI YOU IMBECILE!' Came a frustrated screech from below. James looked down to see a Ravenclaw 4th year yelling at a 1st year Slytherin. 'I know you were the one who looked this time! We had nearly reached the top!'

'How could you know I looked unless you did yourself!' The boy named Zabini retorted.

Another small Slytherin had taken advantage of the argument below to try the staircase himself. He had nearly reached the top, hadn't even cracked his eyes open in the slightest, and appeared to be showing no emotion, when Sirius spotted him.

'Ah. Snivellus. Can't have that.' Was all Sirius said before taking a run up at the staircase and slide-tackling Snape, who still had his eyes closed. Snape's feet were taken from beneath him, and he nearly did a full flip in the air before sliding down to the bottom.

Sirius called up to Emily, James, and now Remus and Peter, as they had appeared behind them, seemingly just in time to see Sirius' takeout. 'Come on, your turn. I knocked down 5 people but I get an extra point for Snivellus. Lets play bowling.'

Laughing James through himself down the staircase as a crowd formed to venture up it again. It really was too easy on this staircase, as no-one could see you coming.

They played 'Bowling' all the way to the great hall, only using staircases they could activate themselves such as one against purebloods or people under 5ft. Emily, James and Peter all fit into this category.

They entered the hall and began to eat breakfast, still on a slight adrenaline high.

'Hey, Sirius, how do you even know what bowling is?' Emily questioned, devouring her food. Running at slide tackling had made her hungry

I saw some teenage muggles playing it, they were dressed up as massive white things that time though. It's a pretty weird game really. Trying to knock other people over.' Sirius said thoughtfully.

Remus laughed, 'That's not the actual game Sirius, in the original game you knock over pins with a ball. The people you saw were probably drunk.'

'Huh. That's boring. I like Sirius' version better.' James said.

'Yeah, well I won! 36 points!' Emily boasted.

'You cheated. You got one more staircases than us because the only way to activate it was to be a girl.' James accused.

'Still counts. You could have just slid down the stairs if you wanted points that much.'

Peter snorted. 'Not likely. It's stone staircases. I like my skin where it is, not scraped off by a staircases.'

Emily shrugged. 'Your choice.'

**...**

**A/N: I have a longer chapter nearly ready, nearly 2000 words, so I'll update that in a couple of hours. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE REVIEWS.**

**MaraudersForever62**


	14. Chapter 14

It was Friday afternoon, nearly a week after they had pulled their great staircase prank, and Remus was wondering how to get away from the common room without arousing suspicion. He needed to meet madam Pomfrey so he could be escorted to the place in which he would transform. This was his first transformation at Hogwarts. He was nervous to say the least. In the end he decided on just saying he felt sick. It would give him and excuse to stay overnight, and he felt sick. After all, he always did feel sick on the full moon.

Remus stood up abruptly, 'I feel sick.' He announced to no-one in particular. Emily glanced up from her charms essay.

'You look sick.' She replied in a worried tone. 'Maybe you should go and see madam Pomfrey?'

'Yeah, I'll go do that,' Remus said feeling relieved. That had been easy. He crossed the room and was surprised that Emily made to go with him.

'Where are you two heading off to?'James called across the common room.

'Remus feels sick. We're going to the hospital wing.' Emily called back. James and Sirius sprang up from where they had been playing wizards chess. Peter followed without a word.

As they walked through the castle James and Sirius bantered with each other, making the other 3 laugh.

'I was going to win!' Sirius stated, 'I had your king cornered.'

'My king can move. I had already would have Checkmate in 3 moves.' James retorted.

'Its not fair anyway, it's your chess set. The pieces respond better to you, I'm sure they just don't like me.'

'I'm sorry I had to be the one who informed you of this.'James said solemnly, placing a hand on Sirius' shoulder, 'but it's not just the chest pieces.'

James ducked Sirius' playful punch and he comprehended the joke.

'We'll see. Guess what I'm getting for Christmas?' Sirius asked.

'A brain?' James suggested.

'A life?' Emily said.

'Friends?' Peter put in.

'A T in potions?' Remus finished.

Sirius glared at his friends. 'NO! And it wasn't my fault it exploded. The cauldron was faulty. I'm getting a chess set.'

'Amazing. Why are you so hyped up about this? Emily asked.

'Emily, Emily, Emily.' Sirius said, shaking his head disbelievingly, 'this is not just a chess set. This is the best chess set in all time. Ever.'

'Why?' Peter asked.

'This chess set has been passed down in my family for hundreds of years. Normally I would hate it under these circumstances, but it has been passed on by the few of us in my family that are sane. There is normally one every generation. My uncle Alphard for example, is the one giving it to me. He told he during the summer.'

'Its still only a chess set, even if it is an family heirloom.' James said disbelievingly.

'No. You still don't get it. This chess set has been charmed. A lot more than usual. You can customise your own white pieces and the black army is my family. I can't wait to defeat the Queen, who is my mother. With the curses the white pieces use, the remains of a piece at the end of a move is amusing. And I've been waiting to slice Kreatures head off for years. All the pawns are different house elves over the generations.'

'That's... Disturbing. How can you hate a house-elf that much. The're innocent, and kind of pitiful.' James said.

'You have obviously never met Kreature.' Sirius replied darkly.

Before the conversation could advance any further on the Sirius hatred to Kreature, Remus knocked on Madam Pomfreys door. She bustled out, and sighed as she looked at them.

'Which one of you is it this time?' She asked tiredly. The marauders had been in and out of her office for the month they had been at Hogwarts. James had fallen of his broom in the flying lessons, while showing off and hanging upside down with one leg. Sirius had found it hilariously funny to tickle him at that moment, resulting in a broken wrist, and several angry swear words. Another time Sirius caldron had exploded and he and Remus had ended up hear, to check for any side effects. There were plenty of other examples, and Poppy Pomfrey was beginning to wonder how many times she would heal the marauders, in there 7 year stay at Hogwarts. They hadn't even learnt to duel yet, she was sure there would be more injuries resulting of that.

'Me, I feel sick.' It was Remus that spoke. And suddenly it dawned on her and she played along immediately. This was the perfect excuse for Remus to stay here until tonight.

'Ok then, come and sit down, I'll check you over in a minute. You really sick actually, you might have to stay the night.'

Remus sighed inwardly. This was going to be easier then expected. Madam Pomfrey was doing all the acting for him.

James, however, was having none of it. It was weekend tomorrow, and they wanted to plan another prank. They had planned to find the Slytherin common room, camp outside it until they knew the password and then... James hadn't thought out the exact details but he was sure it would involve sleeping Slytherin's and maybe the astronomy tower. Either way he wanted Remus present for it.

'Can't you just give him a pepper up potion or something?' He asked frowning. Sure, Remus' ears might be steaming for a few hours, but surely that was better than missing the weekend.

Pomfrey was not going to have Remus snatched from her grasp that easily. 'No, no, definitely not. He has a fairly mild but extremely contagious illness. I have to keep him in custody until he is better, or he'll spread it around the whole school. It has no recognisable symptoms, just makes the victim feel horrible and fuzzy brained. In a school this can not happen. I'm afraid we are going to have to keep Remus over night.'

James was taken aback. Madam Pomfrey was talking extremely fast, and practically shooing them out of the door. When they had been banished from the land of the hospital wing, James sighed and ran his hens through his hair.

'Well, Remus had been stolen, but we're allowed to fly on weekends now we've had flying lessons, as long as the pitch isn't booked. Anyone want to come?'

Sirius responded positively, ha and James on broomsticks together was. Extremely funny. They were always trying to out do each other, resultin in more and more dangerous and reckless tricks. The other 2 however, responded less optimistically. Peter hated heights, and although Emily had dreamed since she was little about flying, she could not seem to get the hang of it.

'Come on Emily, I'll teach you how to get off the ground.' James offered.

'I know how to get off the ground.' Emily replied indignantly.

Sirius cut her off, 'I'll teach you to stay up in the air for more than 5 seconds.'

'I've done that too!' Emily replied.

James sniggered. 'Yeah only because you shot straight up and fell, and the falling took more than five seconds because madam hooch cast a feather light spell.'

'Ok, fine I can't fly. Teach me.'

'What the magic word?' Sirius teased.

'Avada kedavra if you don't shut up.'

Sirius laughed even harder at this. 'Come on Peter, are you coming too? You can just watch if you want.'

'Ok then.' Peter said. He was fine with the watching part, and was throughly amused by their antics most of the time. As long as he didn't have to fly up in the air. Really far up. He shuddered. He hated heights.

They played for hours on the pitch, Peter enjoying himself by just being a part of this, warmed by the fact that Sirius had asked him to come along specfically. James and Sirius were having the times of their lives, Emily swore they would make the quidditch team next year. They were good teachers as well. At one point, they had linked arms with Emily either side of her, flew her up into the air, and left her. Emily had been surprised to find out that she wasn't plummeting towards the earth, though James and Sirius were still circling below invade she did, she was floating, in midair. Of course, as soon as she friend to take control and fly around, the broom spiralled out of control, and she went on a less than graceful, premature decent to the ground.

Remus, oblivious to the fun his friends were having, waited in the shrieking shack, with a growing sense of unease. What is something went wrong? what if he broke out? Anxiety and nervous anticipation gnawed on his insides. After a hour, he had convinced himself that Dumbledore never should have let him into the school. He wished he was home. The past month with the marauders had felt as if he was living someone else's life. A normal persons life. Now he was back to normal, brought crashing back to reality by the full moon. But it was worse this time. At home, his parents would talk to him, calm him, and sometimes he was able to suppress the wolf, and stay himself. But it was always such an effort, and practically impossible to do alone. He hated being alone. He wanted to go home. Sitting on a small bed in the shrieking shack, his nails bitten down to the stumps, he nervously waited for the arrival of the moon.

...


	15. Chapter 15

Remus couldn't think. His back arched, his legs bent, and the amber specks I'm his brown eyes grew and combined, submerging the brown amber, and he suddenly had a strange hunger for flesh. Or blood. He was just hungry. And then the wolf emerged in his head and the Remus he usually appeared as was suppressed.

Remus watched through the wolf's eyes, it's heightened sense of vision and small feeling foreign in his body. But then he spotted the mirror, Remus was only a observer when the full moon was present. He couldn't do anything while the wolf launched its self at its reflection, but he could still feel the pain as the mirror shattered and crashed down on top of him.

The wolf caught sight of its reflection in the bigger shards of glass on the floor, and was soon pounding the floor with its fists and howling. As the moon gradually became stronger, Remus was completely defeated, and couldn't remember anymore. He didn't try to resist. There wasn't any point.

The shopkeepers and villagers of hogsmead didn't sleep that night. They didn't know what this howling and banging was, and many assumed that a poltergeist or 2 had settled somewhere nearby.

Remus woke up, so to speak, in the morning. He woke in a puddle of blood, he wished that the mirror hadn't been there. It was worse than at home. Maybe the wolf didn't like the new surroundings, as it had tried, and half succeeded, to demolish the room. Remus heard footsteps, and saw Madam Pomfrey at the door.

Madam Pomfrey gasped. She had not been expecting this. As she rushed to Remus' aid, he looked up at her.

'Hey,' he croaked. He could taste blood in his mouth, and he wasn't sure if he'd bitten his tongue, or just tried the drink the blood on the floor.

Madam Pomfrey took immediate action. With a quick charm, Remus was floating in the air and out of the tunnel. She disillusioned him, after seeing him in daylight and deciding she didn't want to scare the early-rising students. Soon, Remus was lying on a comfortable hospital wing bed, the curtains drawn and potions being poured down his throat.

...

Emily rose late on Saturday, tired by quidditch the night before. When she stumbled down the stairs she found Peter and Sirius playing chess.

'Hi.' Emily yawned.

'Morning,' Sirius smiled, moving a rook across the board.

'Where's James and Remus? Emily asked,'Peter, move your horsey piece or it's going to die.'

'James is asleep and I think Remus is still in the hospital wing. And don't help him, it's cheating. Especially if you don't even know what the pieces are called.' Sirius replied.

'We need to hurry up, it's 11:00, and James said something about finding the house common rooms.'

'We can always do it tonight.' Peter said absently, commanding his knight across the board.

'Nope. We need to follow people. So please win soon, Sirius.'

'Ok.' Sirius said grinning.

'Hey!' Peter said indignantly. 'I win sometimes!'

'Name once,' Emily challenged.

'I won against you!'

'I had no idea how to play and it was my first game.'

'I still beat you.' Peter stated.

'And anyway,' Sirius chipped in,'you still have no idea how to play.'

'True.' Emily agreed.

About 20 minutes later, the match was coming to an end, and James finally emerged from upstairs. He sat and watched the game until it ended, before proposing a plan for the day.

'We need to find the different houses. We can't do it at night because there are no people to follow. We also need to find out the passwords. Especially Slytherin's.'

'Ravenclaws don't have a password, they have to answer a question. It's how they learn apparently.' Peter looked up to James staring at him. 'My gran told me, she was a Ravenclaw.' He added defensively.

'Brilliant. Any idea where the common room is?' James asked.

'No, I asked but she couldn't remember.'

'Ok then, I think we should go and find Remus first, he'll be bored as hell in the hospital wing. You know what Madam Pomfrey is like. Emily said.

'Dont sit up! SLEEP! Don't speak! REST! No visitors! BE ALONE! Don't smile! DIE OF BOREDOM!' Sirius did an impression, making the others laugh.

'Exactly,' Emily sniggered, 'should we go rescue him?'

'Ok.' James decided, and the went on there way to the hospital wing.

...

When they arrived at the hospital wing, they were in for a shock. As they walked in Madam Pomfrey spotted them and headed them off.

'Hello, can we please see Remus?' James asked politely, when she stepped in front of them, blocking their path.

'Not now I'm afraid dears, Remus has a disease and it is highly contagious. The good news is, it doesn't last very long. Perhaps you should come and see him later or tomorrow?'

Emily blinked. 'Couldn't we just hold out breath and not touch him?' Now that it had been established that Remus would not be released, there next goal was just to see him.

'If you did you would have to stay here with him. I just cannot risk having this spread around the whole school.' Madam Pomfrey said, cursing the marauders for being persistent.

'How come you can see and touch him then?' Sirius asked dubiously. This 'disease' was become far too convenient for the person informing them about it.

'It only affects children.' Madam Pomfrey said bluntly, inventing wildly. She had originally thought that this excuse would work every month for Remus, but with his friends being as inquisitive as this, Remus would be lucky to stay undetected for 1/4 of a year.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: So I got another review. 3 days ago apparently, but it's only come through now. It's weird because it's after a review posted a day after it. Anyway, have another chapter, less than 3 hours after the last one due to my special internet. Thank you for the review they mean a lot to me, and in response:**

**_guest (2): _****yeah, that was pointed out in an earlier review, which was actually later, but which I saw first, but it's been fixed. Sorry about that. I know it ruined the flow of the story, and thanks for telling me. Thank you for you support, and for the review, you can have a longer chapter. About 1600 words as opposed to the usual 1000.**

...

The remaining marauders sat down in the great hall for breakfast, and debated Remus' disease.

'Its definitely non-existent,' Sirius argued, 'it was really convenient, and every single point and aspect if it seemed to counter our ideas and suspicions.'

'But why would she lie?' Peter said, shaking his head, 'She has no reason too, and why would she want Remus to stay if he wasn't ill anyway?'

'I don't know, but I've never heard of a magical disease that only affects children.' James said.

'If it did exist, I'm sure me and James would of caught it, because it's highly contagious and all that.' Sirius adding, 'we did actually meet up with a lot of wizards at parties we were forced to go to.'

'Though not always the same ones.' James noted.

'Nope,' Sirius agreed, 'I went to the bigoted ones.'

'Even if the disease was real,' Emily said bringing them back to suject, 'why didn't Madam Pomfrey just give us all bubble-head charms.'

'Maybe she can't do them.' Peter suggested.

James clarified 'To qualify as a healer you have to have all sorts of NEWT's, and I'm sure one of them is charms. And it's only an OWL level charm. She can defiantly do one.'

'I wish I could do one,' Peter sighed. 'Then we could sneak in to see Remus, and not risk spreading whatever he has to the whole school.'

'If he even has anything!' Sirius said, but James only stared at Emily.

'Well?'

'Sorry,' she replied. 'I've not got the charms OWL book, John kept it to help with charming products.'

'What the hell are you two on about.' Sirius demanded.

'Emily seems to have made it her mission to try and preform every single charm in her textbook.' James said disdainfully, 'I have no idea why, the concept of work outside of school hours is preposterous!'

'Its not normal work,' Emily sighed, 'It's MAGIC!'

'So?' Sirius asked, 'This is a MAGIC school'

Emily sighed again. 'Its a bit like... er ... Quidditch for you two. You've known you could do it for most of your life, have done it occasionally, and have watched it being preformed all the time. But until now, you've not allowed to fully practice it. Wouldn't you try to learn every Quidditch maneuver if you could?'

'I still say its madness,' James said.

'I think this is why muggle-borns are normally get better results than purebloods,' Sirius said thoughtfully, 'they actually want to learn because its different and interesting.'

James shook his head, seemingly to clear all deep and intellectual thoughts Sirius had implanted into his mind. 'Anyway, even if you insist on having this weirdness, why haven't you learnt the charm that could have helped us with marauding?'

Emily pretended to look hurt, 'It's a really high level charm and-'

'Dont give me that, you silenced me on our second day here,' James practically growled.

Emily laughed. 'Its like I said before, John took his OWN and NEWT charm books to work with him, to help with charming to products he sells.'

'Why would you charm stuff in work?' Peter asked confused.

'He runs Zonkos,' Emily explained, 'you can charm practally anything and sell it if the charm is hard enough. He's invented this parchment, charmed with the protean charm, so you can write notes to your friends in class.'

'Whats the protean charm?' Sirius asked wrinkling his nose.

'Its like... If I wrote on a bit of parchment that had been charmed, and you had the other bit, my writing would show on your parchment.'

'Oh.' Sirius said, imagining this. Then he grinned, 'when can we get some,'

'We can't go into hogsmead until third year.' James said.

'Aw.' Sirius said, ideas and possibilities melting away.

'Er... Guys?' Peter cut in, 'we were discussing Remus here?'

'Yeah, right, I don't think there's anything we can do, we may as well just continue with the plan on our own and hoping Remus' 'disease' is gone later.'

'Ok,' Sirius said 'and you still haven't told us what this 'plan' is.'

'All will be revealed shortly.' James said mysteriously.

'No tell us now.' Emily demanded, 'or were not helping.'

James scowled. 'Fine. We need to discover the location and passwords of the 4 house common rooms, and then sneak into them before the passwords change at night.'

'Yes, we know that but why?' Emily said.

'I don't know yet. Drag Snivellus to the top of the astronomy tower? Jinx the Ravenclaws to have goldfish memory's in class? Dye the whole school's hair and skin their house colours? There's loads of stuff we can do. But we need to be able to jinx them while they are unaware-'

'You mean unconscious?' Sirius interrupted.

'Yeah, whatever, unconscious,' James waved away any interruption and continued, 'I highly doubt we would be able to play a prank on the whole school, or even one house or year, if we can't organise it when they're asleep.'

'The staircase prank.' Emily reminded him,

'That doesn't count, we won't be able to pull any pranks on the entire school if it's not centred around altering the castle temporarily.'

'Using big words, aren't we James?' Sirius teased.

James laughed, 'yeah, that happens when I'm trying to explain the complicated art of pranking to simpletons as inexperienced and curious as you three. I get all professional.'

Peter ignored the insult, he had seen a hole in James plan. 'How will we get up to the girls dormitory? It's clever organising it while the victims are asleep bit not if we're denied access.'

'Oh, look, Peters's using big words as well now.' Sirius said, with mock pride.

'Peter, I am a girl you know.' Emily said, 'the charms don't work on me.'

'Yeah she may not act like one-' James said.

'Or LOOK like one-' Sirius continued.

'Shut up,' Emily said, pretending to hit them.

'So we've got Emily to do the girls bit-' Peter clarified,

'Do I have to do it by myself?' Emily groaned, 'I do need sleep you know.'

'Its ok, we'll get Remus to help you,' James said.

'Yeah I think he'd manage to trick Hogwarts in believing he was a girl,' Sirius said.

'He manages to trick nearly everyone else.' James laughed.

'Not supposed to insult people if they're not here.' Emily reminded.

'Nothing I wouldn't say to his face,' James sniffed.

'True.' Sirius agreed.

'We do need Remus though, as much as we need Emily,' Peter said.

'Why?' Sirius asked.

'Well, I don't think anyone else can answer the Ravenclaw riddle.'

James groaned. 'Peter, are you absolutely sure it's a riddle and not a password?'

'Certain.'

'Ok, we'll go back and get Remus later, let's just find the Slytherin and Hufflepuff houses first.' Sirius said.

'Ok, Sirius go and get some Hufflepuffs to go back to their house, James and Peter follow under the cloak, and map out where it is. We have no idea which part if the castle it's in so you will need the map, and sadly only Peter can draw.' Emily said.

Sirius whined, 'how am I supposed to do that?'

Emily sighed. 'I dunno, talk to the girls in our year, one of them probably has a crush on you, Merlin knows why. Ask to borrow something so they'll have to go get it.'

'And what are you doing? James demanded.

'We know the Slytherin commons room is somewhere in the dungeons, so I'll walk around there until I find someone to follow.'

'But there's only one cloak.' Peter pointed out.

'I don't need the cloak. I'm practically silent at moving when I want to be, and they're not exactly expecting to be followed.'

'Why are you going alone?' James asked.

'Because you three are so loud and clumsy that you managed to fall UP the stairs!'

'Once!' Sirius said indignantly.

'I'd go with with Remus but-'

'He's been abducted by madam Pomfrey.' James said.

'Exactly.'

A/N: So another chapter. Really soon after the last. And 1600 words. Are you proud? I think this merits a review, what do you think?


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: I've been trying to get a review every 3 chapters, and I've been meeting that so car, once I get to 18-21, please review again, or I'll get all depressed.**

**a longer chapter again :-) thanks for reading**

Emily shivered. She'd never noticed how cold it was down here before. She knew the Slytherin common room was somewhere in the dungeons, so she'd been lurking in the darkest corners for the last 30 minutes. She cursed to herself, finding the common room was going to be harder than she'd originally thought. It wasn't just a quick matter of following someone there and waiting, everyone she followed seemed to notice, and she had to stop after a corridor or two. It wasn't because she was being particularly loud, but the foot steps seemed to echo off the walls, and her breath seemed to be a give away to everyone else within a 100 meter radius.

'Why did the dungeons have to be so quiet!' Emily muttered to herself. No one had passed for quite a while now, and she was getting bored. It was easy to trail someone in the normal hectic surrounding of the school, where background noise was blissfully used as a cover, but the bottom floor of Hogwarts seemed to be deserted. She wished she'd asked for the invisibility cloak now. Even if someone got suspicious about the extra pair of footsteps, most people trusted their sight more than their other senses, and dismissed it as nothing. Hiding behind corner, in crevices and pressing into the wall where the light didn't quite reach was hard work.

...

Sirius, James and Peter were having a much easier time. The had followed 5 Hufflepuff second-year girls up down to their common room. The 5 had been to busy chatting among themselves to hear the muffled curses when James trod on Sirius' feet.

When they arrived in the Hufflepuff basement, one of the girls split off saying:

'I'm going to the kitchens, I'll see you in the common room!'

'We've just had breakfast!' Another girl said with a sigh of exasperation, 'do you ever stop eating?'

'Nope,' the 1st girl relied, popping the P and grinning. James and Sirius were surprised to note that she was fairly thin. They both had frames like that, but it was uncommon for a girl to have one. Peter looked on with jealousy, he was never able to quite get rid of the thin layer of fat that distinguished him from 'thin' to 'chubby'.

The girl continued to her friends, 'I know we've only just had breakfast, but I didn't see any chocolate there did you?'

With a smile one of the other girls rolled her eyes and tapped out a tune to enter the Hufflepuff common room. None of the marauders heard it however, because they we're currently trailing after girl number 1 on the way to the kitchens. The decision to do this had been made unanimously and without words, as they trailed after her like a pack of animals that had been promised food. Which they kind of were.

...

Remus let out an involuntary sigh. He'd been drifting in and out of consciousness, not because there was anything wrong with him, more because he was bored out of his mind, and sleeping made the time go faster. The potions madam Pomfrey had given him were working perfectly, but she wouldn't release him until about 6:00pm, when the potions for healing his cuts would finally finish their work, and he would look as normal and and scarless as usual. This wasn't totally necessary, but if he went back in to school looking like he had offended a hypogriff, then some people (namely his friends) were gong to ask questions.

Remus sighed again, read a few pages from one of his textbooks and promptly fell asleep.

History of magic. Better that a sleeping potion.

...

Emily finally reached the entrance to the Slytherin common room, and waited outside for someone to enter. After a few boring uneventful minutes, someone did, and muttered the words toujours pur. Satisfied, Emily began to creep back before she heard voices.

'Heard she was down here, sneaking about.' Came a drawl that Emily knew belonged to the Slytherin 5th year prefect, Lucius Malfoy.

'Yeah, I saw her. Probably looking to pull another stupid prank with the idiotic marauders. This voice was familiar as well, as it belonged to Severus Snape.

'The marauders aren't with her, are they?' Lucius asked, and Emily thought she detected a hint of worry in his voice. She wondered why, he was a fifth year, but she supposed 5 against 2 weren't very good odds, and Malfoy didn't have his usual entourage.

'Nah, Lupin is in the hospital and I saw Potter, Black and Pettigrew at breakfast.'

'That was 2 hours ago. It's 12:00,' Malfoy responded

'I'd have saw them if they were there, James and Sirius are clumsy and arrogant, they wouldn't have thought to sneak around like Emily is doing, and I even saw her.'

'What about the other one?'

'Pettigrew? He can't even hold his want the right way around. I'd be more worried if he was trying to hex himself,' Snape sniggered.

'I'm not worried,' Malfoy said coolly, having picked up on Snape's words, 'but I don't intended to just give the Mudblood a detention either, they don't seem to affect het at all. We just need to let her know that she shouldn't be sneaking around our common room, looking for people to prank.'

This was all Emily needed to hear, the voices had been getting steadily closer, but curiosity had kept her feet nailed to the floor. But, as if responding from the almost direct threat, she turned around swiftly and ran.

'Can you hear that?' Snape's voice sounded urgent.

Emily's footsteps echoed of the walls, so Snape and Malfoy weren't sure what direction they came from, just that someone was running. By the time Snape had poked his head around the right corridor, she had turned around the corner.

Recalling the marauders map's corridor layout of the dungeon, she took 2 lefts and then a right before she reached the stairs.

As Emily was sure James Peter and Sirius wouldn't have found both common rooms yet, she ended up wandering around the castle aimlessly for a bit in search of the marauders. When her brain kicked in again and informed her that they would be under the invisibility cloak, she went to see Remus.

...

James watched in awe as the Hufflepuff girl tickled the pear in a picture of a fruit bowl, and the painting swung open to reveal a room full of house elves and food. Sirius elbowed James under the cloak and muttered

'We can come back later, we know how to get in now.'

James was reluctant to leave, but slowly they retreated back to the hufflepuff common room. They waited there until someone else came along and tapped out a tune on the barrels. After it had been memorised they returned to the great hall.

'What now?' James asked.

'Well, we need to follow some Ravenclaws.' Sirius said, surveying the crowd for departing Ravenclaws.

'Over there!' Peter said, pointing to three 4th year boys.

They waited until they were out of the great hall, then disappeared under the cloak. Following the Ravenclaws up a tower, they soon approached a door with an brass knocker. One of the boys knocked sharply, and waited.

An airy, almost sing-song voice rang out, 'What is time?'

One of the boys jokingly looked at his watch, '12:20'

The door stayed shut, someone stepped forward slightly, and spoke in quite voice. Standing fairly far away, none of the marauders heard the answer. But, to their surprise, the door didn't move. Looking disgruntled, the boy turned back to his friends who were grinning.

James Sirius and Peter edged forwards to hear this answer.

'Dumbass,' another boy said, before taking a deep breath and answering the door. 'Time is the matter in which events are ordered. It can measure the duration of events. It is, the fourth dimension.'

As the door swung open and they entered, James was sure he heard one of the, say:

'What the hell is the fourth dimension?!'

Sirius pulled the cloak off them, and looked around. They all came to the conclusion at the same time, and said simultaneously: 'We need Remus.'

...


	18. Chapter 18

James, Sirius and Peter all arrived at the hospital wing just in time to hear the end of a furious argument between Madam Pomfrey and Emily.

'... But why can't you just cast a bubble head charm!' Emily said exasperatedly.

'Why can't you understand the concept of time...' Madam Pomfrey started.

'Ironic.' James whispered to Sirius

'...And just leave Remus alone for the 24hours that he needs to heal! I don't want to infect the whole school, so you can go without seeing your friend until 6:00.'

'Why can't we see him Now!? How does the disease spread? This is a magical school, I'm sure we can sort something out!'

Madam Pomfrey took a deep breath. 'Do not come back for 5 hours 30 mins. If you do, I will tranfigure one of you into an alarm clock.'

With this she stormed away, and didn't hear James saying, 'It's against the school rules for teachers to use transfiguration as a punishment. Just saying.'

The Marauders stood in the doorway of the hospital wing looking at each other. Little did they know, Remus was also listening in, wanting it call out but knowing that he couldn't, because his throat was still healing from roaring himself raw the other night. The most he could manage was a whisper.

'What now?' James asked.

'Homework.' Emily replied with a a sigh.

'Has it really come to that!?' Sirius asked, gasping comically.

'Yes. We've got loads to do, I'm not sure how Remus is going to fit it all in actually.' Just as they're turned to leave, a floating scrunched up piece of parchment hit Emily on the back of the head.

'Ow. What was that?' She asked, glaring suspiciously at Sirius behind her. Sirius put up his hands in innocence. She picked up the note and read it.

'Bring hw pls- R' it said in scribbled letters.

'What's "Hw"?' Sirius asked, reading the note over Emily's shoulder.

'Homework, probably.' Peter replied.

'Reckon its of Remus?' Sirius asked.

'No, I think there's another "R" in hospital wing wanting homework!' Jams replied sarcastically.

'Ouch. Well, better not keep Remus waiting, race back to Gryffindor?' Sirius siad, grinning.

'Ok,' James replied. '3, 2, 1- GO!'

They raced down the corridor, everyone keeping pace, but after a bit, Emily and Peter started to pant and lag behind. James and Sirius were encouraged by this and sped off, still neck and neck.

'Wait,' Peter said to Emily, leading her down a different corridor, and opening a suit of armour. It was hollow, and led to a tunnel. He squeezed inside, and reappeared in the tunnel. Emily followed, but even taking a shortcut, she didn't think they would win. Taking out her wand, she cast a featherlight charm on herself, Peter, and their belongings.

As running was now easy, they began to talk.

'How did you know that's was there?' Emily, asked, indicating to the armour behind them.

'I'm the one who draws the map remember. I found it, I was going to tell you guys but I forgot. It is on the map.'

Speeding along, they're feet barely touching the ground, they reached Gryffindor tower quickly. The race between the two of them didn't seem to matter anymore. They both reached the wall at roughly the same time.

'Wait out here for James and Sirius. I want to see their reaction.' Emily urged. So they leaned against the wall, and reversed the featherlight charm, and got their breath back. Suddenly at the end of the corridor, a painting swung of its hinges, James and Sirius could be seen clambering through the hole. James was slightly in front. His head was down, and his bag followed in jerky movements, according to James wand hand, which was propelling James forward. James glanced behind him, to check where Sirius was, then up. His pace got slower and slower, until he was barely jogging up to meet them.

'How?... What?... Why?...' He panted, hands I'm knees, breathing heavily.

Sirius joined them. 'You...cheated.'

'How?' Emily asked eyebrows raised.

'You used...secret passage.'

'So did you.' Peter responded, pointing at the painting that they had burst out of, its occupants still muttering angrily.

'You used magic!' James accused. Emily pointed silently to his floating trunk.

'Well... Doesn't count. It's only 'Wingardium Leviosa' James said defensively.

'Why didn't you use Locomotor? Then it would have followed you.' Emily asked with surprise.

'Didn't even know that was a spell! What spells did you use?'

'Only one.' Peter replied smugly. 'The featherlight charm.'

'Dammit.' cursed Sirius, 'Well, let's got get Remus his homework. We'll take your way back.

...

They arrived back on the hospital wing, to confront a furious Madam Pomfrey.

'IT'S 1:00. NOT 6:00! 1:00! Don't you have other things to do than harass Lupin!' She exclaimed.

'Nope,' James a replied cheerfully.

Sirius observed that the vein on Madam Pomfrey's forehead was about to explode, made a placating gesture. 'Relax, we just came to bring him his homework.'

'How did you...' Madam Pomfrey frowned. Remus had been asking for his work all day.

'Physic abilities.' James said, handing Pomfrey the homework.

...

A/N: I can't update tomorrow, so I'll give you another chapter in a few hours instead. Sorry


	19. Chapter 19

They had only just finished their homework by 5:40, as they had a lot to do. Everyone had left it to the last minute. They walked down to see Remus, and found madam Pomfrey at the door with Remus, obviously waiting.

'Now,' she began, 'Remus seems to b fully recovered, but I think I might have to keep him in over night, just in case he starts to show symptoms again.'

At the look on all of the marauders faces, Madam Pomfrey grinned, 'Just kidding. Now leave, and don't want to see any of you back here for at least 4 weeks.'

'We'll try.' Emily called back, they were practically running away with Remus before Madam Pomfrey could change her mind.

Once they were a far enough away for it to be deemed safe, James asked Remus,

'What is time?'

'Er... The fourth dimension?' Remus answered bemusedly.

'See, I knew you were smarter than a Ravenclaw!' James replied, leaving Remus to feel confused.

'And next time you're away, would you mind telling us in advance. Then we can plan around you're absence.' Emily said jokingly.

Remus felt a unfamiliar jolt in his stomach. This was what is was like having friends, you were missed. In that moment, he really wanted to say that he wouldn't be here next month as well, but how do you tell someone you'll be ill in advance? So instead he just grinned and said,

'Yeah, ok, I'll try. Promise.'

...

Nearly a month later, Remus sat on his bed biting his lip. Halloween was fast approaching and the marauders were brain storming prank ideas. Remus hadn't contributed yet, he had other things on his mind. Like how to explain his absence this time.

'Going for a walk. I need some fresh air.' He stated, standing up abruptly.

Emily peered at him. 'Yeah, you do look a bit green. Try not to puke until its somewhere flitch has to clear it up.'

Remus attempted a shaky grin. 'I'll try.'

Emily looked down on her plan to make a house have pumpkins for heads, and how she would do this. James and Sirius were both flicking through the jinx book both James and Emily owned, and Peter was scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment. They didn't even look up.

Remus smiled as he left the room, normally he was sure he would have been accompanied by at least one bored Marauder, but they had 4 days until Halloween, and wanted to pull a prank on the whole school.

Remus glanced up yo find himself face to face with the gargoyles guarding Dumbledore's office. Apparently his sub-conscience had decided what to do without telling him. He knocked on the door.

'Password?' One of the gargoyles asked, making Remus jump.

'I don't know. I just need to see Dumbledore.' He said desperately.

'Password?' The gargoyle repeated firmly.

Remus slouched against the wall, wondering what to do (maybe go and see Mcgonagall for the password?) when the doors slid open, revealing a staircase. On that staircase was Dumbledore.

'Ah, Remus come in. I must say I am surprised you didn't visit me last month.'

Dumbledore turned and walked into his office, not waiting to check if Remus was following.

She they were sat down at Dumbledore's desk, Dumbledore surveyed Remus over the top of hit hands.

Remus wasn't sure whether he should break the silence or not, but as it stretched on, he began.

'Sir, I'm not sure how to hide the fact that I've got to go away. I tried just saying I was ill last week, but my friends... They're very suspicious, and seem to think that madam Pomfrey was making the disease up.'

'Well, was she?' Dumbledore asked.

'Yes, but I don't know how they knew. I just don't think I can pretend to be ill again. They kept visiting me every 2 hours, and it was driving Madam Pomfrey crazy.'

'It sounds like you have some very loyal friends.'

'Too loyal.' Remus muttered.

'Remus, I have been giving this problem my utmost attention. Of course, I have provided a place where you can... Transform, but I know your monthly disappearances would cause suspicion as well. If it is just a matter of incidental circumstances, I am sure people would soon realise that it is happening monthly. If we, however, tell them that you will be going monthly, they will not see anything wrong.'

'But... What?'

'This excuse would also have to be serious enough so people would not go snooping, like your friends did when you said you were ill. I have spoken to your mother, and she said she wouldn't mind if we said that she was seriously ill. I know this is not the most convenient of subjects, but I believe that it is necessary if we are to avoid suspicion. Not many people are willing to believe that you would lie about such a thing.'

'Thats because I won't! What if she does get ill, the it'd be my fault!'

Dumbledore sighed. 'I thought you might take that attitude. You are a Gryffindor, after all. Do you not see, Remus, that this is important. We would be lying for a reason, and that is to keep you education. I would still admit you into this school, if people found out, as I never succumb to peer pressure. But you would be hounded by the daily prophet, and people are ignorant about werewolves, and most pureblood family's think even less of werewolves than they do of muggle borns. It is imperative that it is kept a secret.'

'Well...' Remus sighed. 'Ok. But only until I think of something better.'

'That is understandable. I know this is not an easy thing to lie about.' Dumbledore's gaze softened. 'I think it would be best if I send a scroll bearing the 'news' tomorrow, just before you have to leave. It would look a bit suspicious if you found out your mother was ill, and then waited a few days to go and see her. Plus you always look not 100% the night before the transformation anyway. It should be believable. But until then Remus goodnight, and good luck.

Remus turned to leave, and made his way to the Gryffindor common room in a daze.

...

A/N: please review and fav


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N : come on, please review, if not now then on the next chapter. I really want to reach 1 review every 3 chapter, thats not too much to ask is it? Not when I update daily surely...**

**...**

Remus returned to the common room still in a daze. As he walked into the dormitory, he found all the marauders still hard at work.

'I swear you guys spend more time on this than you did revising for exams.' He said, shaking his head and sitting on his bed.

'They were only half-term exams, not really important. I'll revise for my owls, but since that's 5 years away.' James indicated to his book on curses, 'I think I'll stick with this.'

'What have you got so far?' Remus asked, trying to take his mind of what he and Dumbledore had discussed.

Emily replied 'Well, we're going to modify peoples looks according to house, for example, Sirius said that Slytherin's have to be the typical muggle witch. You know, green face, warty chin, long nose. Hufflepuff can just be pumpkin heads that change expressions dramatically, and I think Ravenclaws were going to be goblins.'

'Yeah, now all we need to do, is figure out how to do all that.' Sirius said with a depressed tone to his voice.

Peter continued. 'We're going to sign our names too. In fireworks. Not our real names of course, just 'brought to you by the marauders' at breakfast.'

'I'm going to write to John so he can help with that. I might ask him for more ideas as well, just in case we can't do the appearance changing thing. Anyone got a spare bit of parchment?' Emily asked. Sirius threw a paper airplane at her. Unfolding it she began to write.

The rest of the marauders went back to reading, and it wasn't long before Peter discovered something in his herbology book.

'There's this spell, you can use, to change the apperence of a plant, it's often used in marketing to make the item more appealing to the eye, therefore more likely to sell. If we combined that with the staircase spell that reacted to emotions, we could set different pumpkin faces.'

'Thats all very well Peter, but how are we going to get the pumpkin in place of their heads?' James said tiredly. It was 10:30, and they're been at this for hours. It was during the half term holidays, but even without lessons all day, they were still shattered.

'There's a potion that can do that.' Remus said, looking up. 'It doesn't actually replace the body part, but it creates an illusion to everyone else.'

'That'd be even better though, wouldn't it?' Sirius said. 'Because the Hufflepuffs wouldn't know what people were laughing at.'

'How long does this potion take?' James asked.

Remus ruffled through his potions book. '3 days.' He said, scanning the page. And I've not got all the ingredients either.'

'Crap,' James said. 'You'll need to start on it now, if we're to have anytime to give it to them at all. Start it now, and Emily and I will go get the ingredients.'

'What about us!' Peter and Sirius cried at the same time.

'Your not exactly the stealthiest, and we have to do this quickly. It's going to be hard breaking in as well. We can't have too many people.'

'Your not exactly stealthy yourself.' Sirius said sulkily.

'Its my cloak.'

'Fair enough'

...

Clutching a list of ingredients scribbled by Remus in on hand, and the letter to John scribbled by herself in the other, Emily set off with James to the potions storeroom.

Unfortunately, this resided in the potions classroom. In which, professor Slughorn was reading.

'He's in there.' James whispered to Emily, after peeing throught the crack in the door.

'Can I distract him while I runs nod get the ingredients?' She replied.

'Maybe. I'll throw some things around a corridor up, he'll probably think it was peeves. You'll have to be quick though.'

'I will be. What's this thing? What does it look like?' Emily asked, pointing to an ingredient she'd never seen before.

'Green and stringy. Don't worry it'll be labelled.' Without another word, James sprinted from beneath the cloak and turned the corner. Emily waited, and soon there was an unmistakable sound of a chandelier crashing to the floor. Professor Slughorn waited for a few seconds, apparently hoping to hear another teacher sorting it out. Eventually he got up and left the room sighing.

Emily ran in, threw open the potions door and began to gather the ingredients remus needed. Just as she was about to leave however, Slughorn came back in, and closed the door behind him. Emily pressed herself against the wall, and breathed in as Slughorn narrowly passed her. Hoping that the things she was holding we all secure and wouldn't fall, Emily, waited for something, anything, to happen. James waited outside Slughorn's classroom for Emily. He wasn't sure weather she'd passed him or not. Deciding to be sure, after all Slughorn hadn't taken long, just vanished the remains of the chandelier and left, James pushed open the door and ran.

Slughorn looked up from his book, startled, then evidently decided that the benefits of a closed door didn't out way the effort to close it, and remained in his seat. Emily slipped out of the room, and as an afterthought, swung the door closed behind her. Slughorn would probably think it was the wind.

James peeked around the corner, he wasn't sure why, as he knew Emily would be under the cloak, so he wouldn't be able to see her. Luckily, Emily saw him, and temporarily revealed her head. Seeing Emily's face hover in midair for a moment then disappear, James raced over. When they were both SAFTEY back under the cloak, Emily said:

'Can you take these back to Remus? If I post my letter now, John might be able to get us the fireworks by tomorrow. He's only in hogsmead.'

'Yeah, ok. Did you ask him for ideas as well? I don't feel like we've got much at the moment.'

'I did. You take the cloak, it would be disastrous if you were caught now.' Emily slipped away without another word, still clutching the letter.

...


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Come on... Review...one review every 3 chapters right... Please? **

...

James returned to the common room, only to find he could barely see where he was going.

'Is it supposed to be an emitting a green fog?' Sirius asked desperately.

'I don't know, I can't see the instructions!' Remus muttered.

James had slipped in without being noticed, grabbed Remus' book, and ducked outside again. After reading through he muttered,

'Vestibulum conticescent,' and the fog began to siphon intones wand, slowly clearing the room.

When the room was clear enough, Sirius blinked a few times and then spotted James.

'Oh, hi. Have you got the ingredients we need next? And where's Emily?'

'Got them.' James said unloading his arms unceremoniously onto the spare bed. 'Emily's gone to post her letter. And it was supposed to be producing fog by the way. They included a simple spell to get rid of it.'

'Good job it was simple, or we'd still be suffocating.' Remus sniggered, and everyone laughed. He had almost forgotten about tomorrow. Almost.

After about 10 minutes of potion making on Remus' part, and general research on the others, Emily burst into the room looking throughly disgruntled.

'The one time Filtch remembers to lock the doors!' Emily said, throwing herself down on the spare bed.

'You could always jump out the window.' Sirius joked. They were at the top of Gryffindor tower.

Emily suddenly sat up, with reignited hope.

'I was joking...' Sirius said uneasily.

'No I could! I've pretty much perfected the featherlight charm, and if one of you did the floating charm just to guide me, in case I end up on the roof, then I could.'

'Well...' James said, looking taken aback. Normally he was the one coming up with suicidal plan, and Emily,y had to talk him out of him. He felt that as their roles were reversed he should at least try.

Luckily for James, Remus spoke up 'Emily I think that's a bit risky just for a letter!'

'Its not just for a letter, we are pressed for time on this prank, and it'll give John time to actually design the fireworks.' She turned to James, knowing either him or Sirius would be easiest to convince. 'Where's the fun without the risk?'

James suddenly grinned, 'Yeah, ok. Sirius? You helping?'

'Ok.' Sirius smiled too.

When Emily was a few feet below the window, Remus suddenly saw a flaw in there plans.

'How are you gonna get back up?' He asked. It's easy to get down because we're here to control you, but we won't be on the ground.'

James and Sirius stopped lowering Emily, looking dubious.

'I could fly up?' Emily, suggested. 'The broom hut isn't far alway from the owlery.'

'The way you fly?..' James sniggered.

'Hey! I'm not that bad anymore!'

Remus sighed. 'No but he's got a point, small window, fast broom, stone wall, long way down. I don't think anyone here could do it. Except maybe James, and he's spent his life on a broom.'

'I know!' Emily exclaimed. 'I can climb.'

'The stone wall?' Peter asked sceptically.

'Yes. There are quite a lot of cracks and I'm amazing at climbing.'

'And modest with it.' Sirius muttered.

'No it's true. I can climb, and as soon as I'm high enough, you can help me again. And this is important, if we don't get the fireworks and new ideas soon, we might not be able to pull a big prank for Halloween.'

James began lowering her down. 30 minutes later, she was stood at the bottom of the tower again. It was bitterly cold, and it had started to rain. The wind of the storm blew against her face, like thousands of ice cold knives. Until them, her hands had been tucked into her sleeves in the hope of warmth, but now she needed them to climb. First she cast a featherlight charm, which helped a little, but did nothing to sort out the numbness spreading through her body.

Cursing the fact that both drying and warming charms were newt level magic, she began to climb. The cracks in the stone that had looked so accommodating and helpful at first sight, now appeared treacherous and sloppy in the rain. She fell twice, once at about half way, where she spun out of control and floated away, not able to grab the wall. Another time was when she was almost at her window, which she noticed, the 1st Year boys dormitories had to be at the TOP of the tower, and the glass was spills and she fell. This time though, she managed to grab a window ledge a couple of floors below, and as much progress was not lost.

As she climbed through the window at last, she cursed the marauders and their promises to help, as she needn't have slipped the second time if they had.

She stopped dead when she looked around. Everyone was asleep! The potion Remus made was stewing away, with a clock set next to it to tell him when it needed more attention. With a jolt she realised it was close to 3:30am in the morning. As her brain processed this, working at a more sluggish rate than usual, her body realised that she should probably be asleep, and proceeded to shut down. She fell asleep slumped on the floor, leaning against the window.


	22. Chapter 22

At 7:00am the next morning, Remus silently got up to add a few more ingredients to the potion. Unfortunately this mere movement stirred James, who was not nearly as silent. Within a few minutes, everyone was awake with the exeption of Emily.

'Wonder why she's still sleeping?' James asked, flicking bits of paper at Emily's head. He knew from experience that he shouldn't wake her up and be in a too close vicinity. Especially since she was practicing the colour of face alteration charms to change the Slytherins and Ravenclaws.

'Probably didn't get in until late. It was raining last night look.' Sirius said, indicating to Emily's set clothes and the dripping window behind her.

'I can't go down to breakfast yet, I need to work on this for a bit.' Remus said, giving the potion 3 anti-clockwise stirs. 'Can you bring me something form the great hall?'

'Better yet, we'll bring you something from the kitchens, mate.' Sirius grinned. 'We've barely been able to go there, as we always seem so busy.'

'Ok thanks.' Remus said absently as they departed.

Emily was suddenly woken by Animulus, her pet owl, tapping incessantly on the window behind her. Startled, she let her in, where Animulus looked at her sternly, as if she knew what was in the letter she was carrying, and shook the rain from her feathers, soaking Remus.

Emily read the letter, with Remus peering over her shoulder.

Dear Emily

I've got the fireworks ready, but I've not sent them here as Filtch normally snoops into the packages that are suspiciously large. Come to hogsmead later today and I can give them to you. I trust you've found one of the six secret passage ways by now.

I have got another idea for a prank, I was going to do it in my Hogwarts 7th year, but I was too busy with my newts. Charm all the portraits to swing open when someone says 'trick or treat'. Then either have a bowl of sweets to be on one side, or a trick, such as a fist with a tension charm, or a self firing jinx. It'll be like when we went trick or treating when you were younger.

I've also enclosed a bit of that parchment enchanted with the protean charm, it should make communicating easier, and I need to test it. I've got the other piece.

John

'Remus, you got a quill?'

Remus threw her a self-inking quill and she scribbled:

**Hi. You there?**

After a couple of seconds there was a reply, appearing on the paper as though an invisible hand was writing it right before their eyes.

_Merlin, your handwriting is terrible! What does that say?!_

Grumbling, Emily handed the quill to Remus.

**Remus here. Emily's friend. I hope you can read mine.**

_Yeah, yours is just about legible. So what time do you want to meet in hogsmead?_

**Er... How do we get there?**

_Please tell me you've found a passage out of the school by now. Or I'll lose all faith in the next generation_.

Remus had found a passage. One he knew john didn't know of, because it had been placed there at the start of the year. For a second, he tempted to share his knowledge, to impress the older boy, but then his brains caught up with him again. That would bring way too many unwanted questions.

**We didn't know there was passages out of the school! We've only been looking on inside walls statues and paintings.**

_Come on! I found one in first week. Right, I'll give you one secret passage. You'll have to find the rest out by yourself. I must say I'm disappointed._

**Ok. Thanks.**

_Near the defence against the dark arts classroom, there is a statue of a one eyed witch. To get through, use the charm 'dissendium' and it will open. This passage leads to honeydukes cellar, so be careful._

**Ok. Should we meet you in Zonkos about 11:30?**

_Yeah, ok. Good luck._

**Bye**

_Bye_

**...**


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: thank you for the reviews on the last chapter :D Here's a chapter, within a day, for the review. I'd try and post 2, for the 2 reviews, but I don't have one written, and I'm a bit stuck for ideas at the moment.**

**_Super Potterhead and Fangirl:_ Thank you! :D**

**_Daughter of Solace:_ Correct, thanks for answering on what some readers may have been confised on :D**

James, Sirius and Peter came bursting into the room with a lot of different types of food. Some Emily hadn't even seen before, never mind tried. James and Sirius were boating heavily about how THEY found the kitchens, and how Emily and Remus should be thanking them profusely until they couldn't take it anymore. They had planned to show them the entrance to hogsmead today, but now they wanted to do it now, just to wipe the superior smirk off the face of James and Sirius.

'Maybe we have found a passage,' Emily teased, interrupting Sirius.

'Yeah that one you and Peter used to cheat in the race.' Sirius snorted in return.

'No that was merely a side tunnel of no importance. We've found something even better than the kitchens.'

'Whats better than the kitchens?' James said doubtfully.

'You'll see.' Said Remus. He knew James and Sirius we now infuriated, but knew that now they're curiosity had been aroused they would follow.

After grabbing a few things that they had prepared earlier, Remus and Emily led them to the statue of the one-eyed witch.

Emily muttered dissendium under her breath, and a passage opened up.

James Sirius and Peter followed wide eyed. They hadn't actually believed that there was another passage.

Once they were about half way down the tunnel, Emily pulled out 2 sets of shrunken muggle clothing, and James' invisibility cloak. After restoring the clothed to the normal size, she threw a set at James, who caught it in surprise. Remus did the same with 3 pairs of muggle clothing.

'We need to get changed, Hogwarts robes would look suspicious.' Remus explained.

'Where the hell are we going?!' James asked, infuriated.

'Good thing come to those who wait.' Was Emily's patronising response.

Emily faced the other way, with the invisibility cloak hanging off her shoulders to ensure some privacy. When she had changed she called out, still facing the wall.

'Are you done yet, or will I be scarred for life if I turn around?'

'Scarred.' James called back.

'Why for Merlin's sake, aren't boys supposed to get changed quickly?'

'Its these bloody gens.' Sirius said in exasperation.

'Jeans.' Remus corrected.

'Why the hell do muggle's wear these things! And why did you 4 manage to get them on so easily!?'

'Well they're mine actually, and I'm a bit smaller than you Sirius.' Remus said. They had searched Sirius' trunk for muggle clothes, before coming to the conclusion that his family probably didn't buy him any.

'You calling me fat?' Sirius grumbled, before finally winning the war against his clothing. 'There!' He said in a cheery voice. 'You can turn around now Emily.'

'Good I was starting to think we'd be late. By the way, you can leave the robes here, we'll probably be coming back this way.' Emily said, setting down off the tunnel again.

...

Eventually, they reached the end of the tunnel, so Remus and Emily finally had to tell the rest of the marauders where they were.

'We're here.' Emily announced.

'Where?' Sirius grumbled, he did not like being kept in the dark

'Under honeydukes.' Remus said with a grin.

James mouth fell open. 'You mean that sweet shop? In the village near Hogwarts? We're out of the castle!?' James said in disbelief.

'Yep.' Emily said, then got out the invisibility cloak, and once the necessary expansion charms had been cast, they proceeded through the store. It was an infuriatingly slow place, as all the boys kept stopping and looking around at the variety of sweets. Emily wanted to tell them that they could enter through the door in a few minutes if they'd hurry up, and look around like real customers. Unfortunately, she didn't want to arouse the suspicion of the surly looking teenager behind the counter, though this didn't stop her from kicking there ankles every time they stopped for too long.

'What was that all about?!' James asked angrily when they finally made it through the door, and appeared I'm the darkness of an ally.

'You might only want to stare at the sweets, but I want to see the rest of hogsmead too. Anyway, you can go back in now.'

'Whats better that a sweet shop?' Sirius asked, seriously.

'I've heard there's a chocolate shop somewhere, I'm going there.'

Remus' ears perked up at the thought of chocolate, and he quickly agreed that was where he'd be heading as well.

'I thought you said we were going to be late for something.' Sirius reminded.

'Oh, crap, yeah, we need to go to Zonkos, to meet John.' Emily said, checking her watch.

'The joke shop?' James asked. After recovering a confirming nod of Emily, he said.

'Fine by me, I'm nearly out of supply's that I brought I need to stack up again.'

'You're out already?' Peter asked surprised. When James had opened his trunk at the start if the term, the marauders were awed to see that at least half of it consisted of pranking items, obviously purchased from a magical joke shop.

'What the hell did you use all that on!?' Emily asked, raising her eyebrow.

'Now, Emily.' Sirius began in an condensing tone. 'Did you ever wonder why Evans and Snivellus hate us so much?'

'You didn't...' Remus said, who had been wondering why Lily kept glaring at him when she had to sit near them in history of magic. He knew they messed about when she was trying to concentrate, but he had thought the glare they were receiving was a bit much.

'We did,' James said, high-fiving Sirius.

'Remember when we put a dung bomb in there potion. It exploded, and took their eyebrows off. I heard Lily went to madam Pomfrey to have them fixed.' Sirius chucked at the memory.

'Bet that was an awkward request, especially as Lily didn't know why.' James laughed as well.

'I think she knew it was you, mate.'

'How?'

'Well, let's just say that if looks could kill, you'd be dead. And be thankful that the knives are kept in the kitchens.'

'Now if girls couldn't enter the boys dormitorys, then I would have to worry about an eleven year old girl slitting my throat.'

'I don't think it'd be your throat she'd slit.' Sirius interrupted. James face twisted in realisation as he got what Sirius meant, and the rest if the Marauders laughed at his horror.

A/N: I'm not updating tomorrow unless I get a review, thanks for the reviews on the last chapter, but I'm going back to the 'no review- 3 days for an update, review-1 day', because I'm finding it a bit harder to write.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Longer chapter, as it's an hour late.**

**_Hinauchi_****: Thanks for the review, though i was half wishing no-one would, just to give me more time to write. But as you bothered to review, I guess I'll bother to write you another chapter.**

**_Foffle_****: I know you actually reviewed a couple of days ago, but because you didn't have an account! it's only just come through. Sorry, I didn't ignore you** on** purpose. I think I actually completed your suggestion by accident, and I'll try to stick to it, it seems like a good idea.**

The Marauders entered Zonkos, and discussed the Halloween prank, though there eyes kept darting to the treasures around them. James could barely suppress the urge to run around the shop, buying as much as he could hold.

'Its nice to see the next generation of pranksters, I was wondering who would take over from me and my friend.' John appeared through a door, his wand having alerted him that someone had entered the shop.

'Well, I know we couldn't have pulled of this one without your help. Have you got any suggestions of how we can change the appearances of people? We've been researching for ages.'

They discussed the technicalities of the prank for a bit longer, before James felt he couldn't sit still anymore.

'Can I look around?' James blurted, as Remus and John were debating how to get sweets for the portrait.

'Sure.' Answered John surprised. 'I didn't think you'd want to buy anything yet, you've only been in school a couple of months.'

James was now grinning. 'Yeah, I was running out. I was actually getting a bit worries about it, but this hop if the answer to all my problems.' He looked around dreamily, and John laughed.

'Well, your welcome to stay as long as possible, but don't forget you can revisit anytime you want. I certainly won't be complaining.'

...

'The marauders spent close to an hour on the joke shop, and then many more roaming around hogsmead. Eventually, they sat in the hogshead, sipping butter beer to warm them up, as James proposed his latest dangerous scheme, and tried to convince them to join him.

'Did you see that house on top of the hill?' He started, after his failed attempt at ordering fire-whiskey

'Yeah, what about it?' Emily asked uneasily. There was a sparkle in James eye that spoke volumes to her about where this conversation was heading and she didn't like it.

'Let's go explore!' James said this bluntly, he was way to tired for subtlety.

'No, James...' Remus started, but it was hopeless.

...

20 minutes later, they found themselves at the foot to the house. Remus had recognised it, and didn't really want to enter, as it seemed a recipe for disaster, but he figured he would do more damage by attempting to make up a reason why they couldn't go in.

'Where the hell is the door!' James said exasperated.

'I don't think there is one.' Sirius answered. 'Can I break the window now?'

'Go on then.'

James had originally prevented Sirius from smashing the window for entry. Sirius had wanted to straight away, as his patience wasn't exactly legendary, it was only now that James' patience was being tested that he agreed.

Emily's adrenaline levels were running high, she loved 'exploring' as James put it. She was sure if Sirius hadn't offered to smash the window, she would have already by now. Peter on the other hand was different, he was trying not to tremble at the thought of what could be lurking in the eerily quite house. He hung back, determined that if any monsters should appear lurking from the shadow, he wouldn't be the first target.

They climbed in through the now smashed window, Emily going last to ensure Remus and Peter didn't chicken out, the first room they enter was wrecked. The ceiling hung in shreds, and they could see glimpses of the sky. There was rubble on the floor, and the only door hung creepily open a crack, hiding the unknown in the next room, while confirming that it wasn't locked.

Emily walked up to the door, and joked. 'It really brings your childhood horror movie experiences to life doesn't it?'

Remus wasn't scared at all, he knew what lay beyond this door, and he knew this was the only room wrecked, as it was the only one available to see in through. If they went into the next room, he knew they would find a normal couch, mirror and fireplace.

Emily found just that as she entered the room, but the mood had been set, and even though it was immaculate, it looked like an Edwardian household, something that had jumped out of a gothic horror setting.

They moved through the house, no-one talking, until James found the room Remus transformed in.

'Claw marks.' He whispered, tracing his fingers over the table. This room would have passed as a bedroom, apart from the fact that the bedclothes had been torn up, the wood of the bedside table had streaks etched into it, and anything remotely breakable was smashed on the floor.

Even Sirius Emily and James were spooked out now, before they had been setting the scene to frighten Peter, but the fact that something might have actually gone on here, made them all uneasy.

After visiting what could have probably have passed as a kitchen, they proceeded down the stairs that they presumed led to the basement. Instead it opened up into a underground dirt passage. Remus was annoyed now. He could have revealed this earlier for the same results. They hadn't discovered anything incriminating fortunately, apart from some claw marks. And any type of... Wolf ...could have made that.

...

They emerged from the passage, and found themselves under a tree. A big tree that seemed to be trying to kill them.

No-one recognised there surroundings, apart from Remus, as they were all a bit pre-occupied trying not to be killed by a tree.

Remus, who preferred possible discovery to death by tree, soon reached the knot in the trunk to de-activate the tree, and it went limp.

'How did you know that was there?' Sirius gasped, as he collapsed on the floor.

'Magic always leaves traces.' Remus said in a patronising way. No-one was in the state to question him at the moment, so they'd let it slide.

'Hey!' Emily said, recognition in her eyes, 'We're at Hogwarts!'

James eyebrows shot into his hairline as he looked around. 'Your right!'

'I'm always right.' Emily smirked smugly.

'What about when you said we'd be returning the passage way, so we could hpget our robes there?' Sirius challenged.

'Oh crap, yeah, we'll get them now. D'you reckon it'll be faster under the cloak I'm groups or all together?'

Remus answered, 'I'll just go and get everyone's clothes, we can change in the passage.'

This was how the first year Ravenclaw boy found a exhausted Remus lupin. He had been sent with a note from Dumbledore, and had been looking for Remus for the past hour.

'Hey Remus,' The boy said cheerily. 'Got a note for you, been looking for you for hours!'

'Er...sorry Callum, I've been catching up on some sleeping time.'

As Callum Boot walked away, Remus opened the note, and the blissful forgetfulness he had been enjoying all day came crashing down, and the discussion he and Dumbledore had hosted the previous evening was again brought to the front of his mind.

...

A/N: Same again with reviews and updating. Sorry I can't put this bit in bold, but because I work off an i pad, it glitches, and doesn't let me edit the bottom half of the text. By the way, if you review without an account, please be aware it won't come through for 2 days.

MaraudersForever62


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: SORRY! I know this is a 3 days late, I had writers block. :| I lost my notes and then spent 1 day looking for them, and another one rewriting them. I'm sorry, I'll definitely give you anther chapter to kore, maybe even in a few hours if I'm feeling creative.**

**Guest: It took 2 days to come through, so I'll just write the next chapter tomorrow, to make up for the fact you couldn't speed up my writing on this one. Thanks for the review! :) Sorry I took so long, even though you reviewed.**

**...**

Emily sat in the boys dormitory, stirring a potion. A few hours ago, Remus had come to them with terrible news. James and Peter had been shocked, along with her, but Sirius didn't seem to understand the importance of family. She wasn't surprised with his Psychopathic mother.

After absorbing the information they had immediately tried to cheer him up, but Emily wasn't sure if it had worked.

...

'Look on the bright side,' Peter consoled with a shaky smile, not used to seeing his friends so serious. 'You'll be back in time for the prank.'

This first piece of conversation spurred Emily, James and Sirius into there usual playful banter, attempting to have the same affect on Remus as they did on there first day. To wipe the tired worn expression of his face, and try to coax a smile..

'Yeah and you'll get to miss all the hard work!' James tried.

'Oh crap the potion.' Sirius remembered. 'Is there anyway you could... Maybe... Just at least show us what- OW'

Sirius was cut off by Emily digging her elbow into his ribs and hissing, 'Not the right time Sirius.'

Remus hated lying to his friends, the fact that they were trying so hard to console him just made him feel even guiltier.

'Its fine, Sirius.' Remus said hollowly. 'I'll show Emily what to do.'

'Why not me!' James asked arrogantly, trying to restore the mood once again. 'What are you trying to say about my potion making skills.'

'Skills!' Emily snorted under her breath to Remus.

'Well...' Peter started, but James stopped him.

'Actually no don't finish that. I don't want to know.'

The self depreciating joke did eventually being a small smile to Remus' face, especially since it was coming from James, who wasn't exactly insecure.

...

While Emily was stirring this potion, James Sirius and Peter were 'Marauding' around the castle, enchanting portraits. Peter and James stood at each end of the corridor, while Sirius systematically charmed the portraits to open at a password, which was 'trick or treat', by using the same spell used on the portrait of the fat lady, a spell john had given them.

It was at this stance when Professor Hecate came across them.

'You 3 and your other 2 friends had a detention with me today!' She said, nostrils flaring dangerously. 'And none of you were there!'

As Peter had alerted Sirius, he was no longer charming the portraits, but had joined his friends side, with James on his way.

'So?' Sirius asked in a bored tone. This particular professor had lost all respect from the marauders, and they had soon discovered the this she hated most was disrespect. Because of this that pissed her off whenever possible.

'SO? It is the responsibility of the pupil to attend the detention, it is. Not the responsibility of the professor to be chasing after them!'

'If you say so.' James said, having joined them. 'But personally, I think it should be your responsibility, as you were the one who arranged it.'

Professor Hecate ignored James and carried on. 'Because if this, you will now be spending detention for double the time tonight.'

'Whats our detention?' James asked with genuine interest.

Hecate leered over them, as she delivered her final blow. 'You will be spending your detention with Hagrid tonight. In the forbidden forest.' Each of her words was carefully planned to install fear in them, but, for James and Sirius anyway, they were positively exited. This had been one of James 'Suicidal' plans disproved by Remus and Emily. Deciding to play along and pretend that they were scared, so they could go, James argued.

'But...' He said, in the smallest most scared voice he could muster, 'Isn't the forbidden forest, well, Forbidden?'

'Yes.' Hecate answered, apparently satisfied. 'For good reason too, but none of those reasons will be enough for you tonight.'

Peter was actually scared, and thought that the best way to get out of this would be to pretend that he wasn't. In a desperate attempt at reverse psychology on they're professor, they're roles had been switched.

'Its a shame Remus isn't here.' Peter said, apparently speaking to himself.

'And why would that be?' Professor Hecate asked. She was asking why Remus wasn't there, as she was sick of the marauders making her rearrange her detentions, but Peter answered her as if she'd asked why he thought it was a shame.

'Well, I'm sure he would have much preferred this to writing lines or scrubbing toilets. This is an adventure, not boring or disgusting.'

Both Sirius and James were looking at Peter with strange expressions on there faces. They're stares were actually accusatory, as they silently begged Peter to keep his trap shut so they could stick with there current detention, but Hecate seemed to this they were looking at him because they were scared and he wasn't.

'Well then Pettigrew, if you're so desperate to be scrubbing toilets, you can. And since Remus isn't here tonight he can join you. Without magic.'

Peter hid a small smile, and instead put a look of disgust on his face. Professor Hecate walked away smugly, and the marauders were left laughing about how you should never underestimate children. That left you open to manipulation, and the no.1 skill every child has is how to get your own way.

...

Emily didn't believe them when they told her what the detention was. It took Sirius swearing on his life, and giving permission for her to hex him should he be lying, AND Peter backing them up before she believed that James had got his wish.

...

A/N: Sorry this isn't in bold, I really want the marauders to have Christmas the same time as us, unfortunately this is at least 5 chapters away. I'll try to be like can't stop won't stop uploading, at least one or 2 chapters a day, but if you could review to help me with this, that would be nice :)

MaraudersForever62


	26. Chapter 26

It was 2 days before Halloween, and as night approached three of the marauders prepared for what could only be described as their 'Dream Detention.'

'Hey Hagrid!' James said cheerily. He was on friendly terms with the half-giant, as his father had attended school with Hagrid, in fact, he was in the same year. Charlus potter had been friends with Hagrid, and although Hagrid hadn't been formally introduced to James Potter, the few words they're exchanged had been friendly.

'Ello James, who've yeh got 'ere then?' Hagrid asked peering down at Emily and Sirius.

'Emily Patterson.'

'Sirius Black.' They introduced themselves accordingly.

'Wha' are 'ere for?' He asked, as they walked towards the Forbidden Forest. He was half smiling, he always got detentions in his days at Hogwarts, and most of them were humorous stories.

'Well, this particular detention is because we missed the last one.' Emily answered.

'But we got the last one for...' Sirius thought hard, he couldn't remember. 'I think it was something to do with the time when the ink pots went mysteriously flying around the room.'

James contradicted. 'No we already did the detention for that one. This one was...' He snapped his fingers as the memory spring to the front of his mind. 'It was when we charmed our quills to insult anyone who came near them, and to have a really bad temper.'

'Yeah, one of them attacked Professor Hecate.' Emily laughed. 'After asking her where her flying monkeys were. That one was my quill.' Emily seemed particularly proud of that fact.

'It would have to be, with that muggle reference.' Sirius threw back. 'I still don't get why muggles think we give a crap about ruby red slippers, or why they think we have blue flying monkeys. I mean MONKEYS! Why?'

'Best bit about that prank, was that Dumbledore gave us house points for the 'excellent spell work.' Nice to know at least someone in this castle has a sense of humour.' James was referring to Professor McGonagall with his last quip, as what had followed that was a grilling from McGonagall about 'attacking teachers' with 'stupidly charmed objects.'

All four were throughly engrossed in this verbal reminiscence, while Hagrid was just astounded about the amount of memory's they had made, considering they had only been here 2 months.

When they stopped, the three marauders began asking Hagrid questions about the forbidden forest, and what resisted there.

'Can we go and see the Acromantula Hagrid?' James asked excitedly. Hagrid was saved by answering by Emily's shocked reaction.

'Acromantula, as in the massive mythical spiders said to live in exotic counties?'

'It ain' no myth. Got the only tame bunch in the whole world I'd reckon.' Hagrid smiled proudly about this, then proceeded to tell them the story of Aragog, and how he had raised him.

'So that Tom riddle chased him out of the castle?' James asked. Hagrid had informed them that Aragog had been chased out of the castle, but not how he had as well. After more than 2 decades that injustice was still too sore for Hagrid to be open about.

'Doesn't sound like a very nice bloke.' Sirius sniffed.

'I'd definitely hex him!' James confirmed.

Emily felt that she was the only one who thought they were unconcerned about a very big part of this story.

'Yeah, yeah,' she said, 'Note to self: Hex Tom Riddle, and all that, but Hagrid, did you just say that giant spiders exist, and that they live in this forest?'

'Yeh, over that way, why?' Hagrid gestured to a path they were approaching on their left.

'Uggh.' Emily shuddered. 'I can practically feel them crawling down my back.'

James and Sirius immediately bang to tease her.

'Dont worry Emily,' Sirius started.

'Yeah, they're so big,' James continued.

'That the only way you wouldn't see them is if they came from as soon as they landed, you'd be trapped beneath their hairy legs, awaiting on the fangs to finish the job.'

While Sirius was saying all this, James had sneaked up behind Emily, and now shaped his hands like fangs, which he dug into her shoulders, before wrestleling her to the ground.

Emily let out a shriek, before proceeding to kick James furiously, who was literally, rolling on the floor laughing his ass off.

'Thats not funny!' She complained. 'I have arachnophobia!'

'And I have uglyitus,' Sirius countered, with an ever witty reply. 'And I still have to look at your face everyday without complaining.'

'What is this, bully Emily day?' She retorted indignantly.

'Certainly not!' James had gotten up off the floor now, and was ready to join in with the banter. 'I was taught not to abuse animals!'

'Oh shut up!' Emily huffed, but her not very well hidden smile showed that she was taking it all in jest.

'So Hagrid, what are we actually doing here?' Sirius asked between bouts of laughter.

'Theres a hurt baby unicorn, it's been abandoned by its pack. Found traces of it las' nigh', that's why I needed you three 'ere. I'm a bit heavy handed mesself, prob'ly would have done it more harm them good.'

'I see why you needed james and Sirius particularly then.' Emily said, determined to get her own back for various jibes.

'Why?' Asked an unsuspecting James.

'Unicorns prefer girls!'

'Hey!' James said, but Sirius was on top insulting form tonight, and simply responded with:

'So why are you here? One look at you and the unicorn will run a mile, injured or not.'

'Ouch.' James remarked in appreciation.

'You know, sometimes I pity Snivellus.' Emily said. 'Being on the receiving end of your tongue is not very fun!'

'Thank you!'

'Not a compliment.'

They had found the unicorn, and nursed it back to enough health that it could be safely carried to Hogwarts, where Hagrid would look after it for a couple of weeks, until it could survive in the wild again. With a promise to come back and help with the more delicate of procedures, the 3 marauders walked back to the castle.

...

**A/N: it's gonna be a lot more than 5 chapter to Christmas as this rate, this chapter was supposed to cover 3 points, but it only managed one :( ah well, more for you to read. I would make this chapter longer to encounter it all, but in England, where I live, it is currently 12:30 am, and I need my sleep.**

**Let me know what you thought about the Tom Riddle bashing, I was just giving the marauders incentive at an early age XD**


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The following night, the marauders could be found, administrating the last effects to the potion and bottling it up.

'Are you sure this won't mess it up Peter?' James asked worriedly.

'Of course it won't, you can trust me on this its herbology not potions! And anyway, if we don't try it, this potion will be useless. If we don't put the final ingredient, the pumpkin in, then the faces won't actually torn into anything.'

Sirius was a bit confused by all this, so he clarified. 'So James and Emily actually INVENTED then preformed a transfiguration spell on the pumpkin to let it change shape according to the persons emotions-'

He was cut off by Emily. 'We didn't invent, merely combined 2 spells together to make a new one.'

'New, invented, point is it had never been tried before you two did it. Anyway, we are putting this into a potion that is treacherous to make, and took strict instructions from Remus to now mess it up, and all 4 of us clarifying before doing anything to it, just to for a prank? Not even a prank on the whole school, just Hufflepuff?'

'Yeah, never underestimate the power of pranking. ' James answered absently. 'How are your spells coming on?'

'Good, I've perfected most of them. Only took me weeks. Sirius was in charge of making the Ravenclaw resemble goblins.

'You should be proud, they were high level spells.' Emily consoled.

'Why aren't we pranking Gryffindor again.' Peter asked, measuring out slices of pumpkin, and weighing them.

'Prank ourselves! I'm not that stupid-' Sirius laughed.

'Debatable at times,' Emily cut in..

'-and we would have done, but we're pranking the whole school anyway, so it doesn't really matter.' He shrugged non-committedly.

'And your scared of McGonagall.' James added.

'I just don't think she would appreciate being pranked again, and I certainly wouldn't want her down-trodden spirits to ruin the rest of the pranks.'

'So are we pranking the Professors as well then?' Emily asked with interest.

'Yep,' James confirmed. 'Only the ones we think weren't in Gryffindor.'

'How you gonna do that.' Emily asked skeptically. 'We don't know where they sleep, and even if we did, I'm not signing up for that!'

'I'll visit the kitchens, and slip the Hufflepuff potion in with there food. As for the others...' James came to a halt. 'Actually no they can all be Hufflepuffs, with the exactions of the heads of houses. We'll just have to charm them without them noticing.'

The pumpkin was finally ready, with James and Emily have enchanted it earlier, Peter had finished weighing it.

They dropped it in, and the potion bubbled, then turned an appeasing milky orange colour, with a slight shimmer to it.

'Does it work?' James asked, peering into the caldron.

'Only one way to find out.' Emily said with a wicked smile.

'Oh, no you don't.' James backed away from the potion. 'Theres no way I'm letting something you 3 have brewed anywhere near my mouth.'

'Thats a shame.' Sirius said, then winked at Emily, and they launched their attack. Sirius hit him with a tickling curse, and then when he was on the floor, Emily cast a leg-locker hex. Sirius would have just cast petrificus totalus but that would have made James mouth impossible to open.

Emily and Sirius now held him down, while Peter gave him barely a drop of the potion.

They let James up when his head transformed into a pumpkin. The look of exaggerated disgust on his pumpkin face soon was replaced by a glare that rivalled one of Lily Evans'.

Sirius asked Peter: 'Why did you only give him a bit?'

'I need to see how long it lasts. And we have the perfect test subject here.' Peter smirked at James, who have them the biggest surprise of all when he responded.

'I hate you all.' He muttered sulkily. Except it didn't come out as a mutter, it came our in a voice as high as a chipmunks, and the other 3 marauders fell about laughing.

'Well that was a unexpected but welcome side effect.' Emily said, wiping her eyes.

Suddenly James head and voice turned back to normal, and Peter checked his stop watch.

'1 minute 13 seconds.' He announced. 'And we want it to last about 24 hours like the spells?' he received nods of confirmation. 'So how much do we need for each person Emily?'

Emily's eyes darted up towards the left side of her brain, as if she secretly hid a calculator there.'Well if it was 1 minute then it would be 14.4 centilitre for 24 hours. Because it's 1 minute 13... It would be 17.52 centilitre for 24 hours?'

Emily looked towards James and Sirius for confirmation, Peter having informed her of his non-exiting prowess in mathematics.

Sirius though, laughed. 'Emily, I don't even know what a centilitre is.'

'10 millilitres.' Peter responded. But James shot that down as well.

'Dont know what that is either.'

One they had bottled it all up, Remus was back, looking exhausted and worn.

'Remus!' James said brightly as he entered the room.

'How was your mother?' Emily asked worriedly.

Remus answered with the discretion that he and Dumbledore had discussed earlier. 'Better than I had expected. I'm going to visit her again next month as well. I want to spend at least some time with her... Just in case...'

It was a believable performance, due to the fact that the hesitation he was expressing because he hated lying about this, was seen as hesitation because he didn't want to talk about it.

Interpreting this as they did, the marauders quickly changed the subject, onto more enlightening things. They went to sleep early, to ensure that they wouldn't be tired for halloween, as they would be up some of the night transforming everyone. Soon it was around 3:30 and they were sneaking out to administer potions and charms. It took them nearly an hour, and they collapsed in their dormitorys exhausted, and eagerly awaiting the next day.

...

A/N: you can probably expect a chapter in a few hours, I still didn't really progress much in the story line. At this rate the first year alone is going to take at least 100,000 words! Thank you for reading, and hopefully reviewing? *cough* hint hint *cough*


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: looks like the question asking about the DMLE in chapter 1 has caused quite a lot of confusion. It was actually something my one time beta asked, and I forgot to take out. Instead of writing you a new chapter last night. I was proof reading what I already have, so I hope you enjoy. This chapter is longer, because of the reviews.**

**_Fancraz4198_****: thank for all of your reviews, and like I said, I'm fixing everything. :)**

**_Summer Leigh wind_****: fixing it, and I didn't say it was their birthdays... I think James birthday is actually in March anyway.**

**_Carroteater1_****: Yeah I'm on it, fixing it now, thanks, I just try to be funny, because the Marauders are!**

...

They awoke very early the following morning, and raced down to breakfast. On the way, the saw professor Slughorn round a corner, and a few transfiguration jinxes from James later, he had all the physical attributes for a muggle wicked witch.

This reminded them that they still had to jinx the head of Ravenclaw house, professor Vector.

'Where do you think Professor Vector will be?' Sirius asked.

'Well her classroom is not the 7th floor, classroom 7a.' Remus replied, and they changed direction to go and stalk the 7th floor.

Since none of them really knew where classroom 7a was, Remus just knew it was the arithmancy classroom, they circled the 7th floor.

Eventually, Sirius found her, and a few curses later, she was sporting some goblin like features. They then raced down to breakfast to see the rest of the school.

The Hufflepuffs who hadn't looked in the mirror this morning were very confused when people said that they had a pumpkin head, and even more confused that everyone else did too. The fact that the pumpkin was only an illusion meant that there were quite a lot of overly confused pumpkin expressions, with the owners hands passing right through them, in an attempt to feel there face. There was nothing wrong with it to touch, but whenever they looked in the reflection of a spoon, on,y orange was reflected back.

The Slytherins looked seriously annoyed, and were eating there breakfast with a violent attitude, stabbing bacon and sausages like they'd had a personal vengeance.

A few of the older Ravenclaws had reversed the charm, but the marauders were pleased to see that they were point blank refusing to revese any others, and seemed to find it hilariously funny. This was the attitude of most Gryffindors, and even Professor McGonagall could be seen sporting a small smile whenever she looked up to see the outraged pumpkin face of Professor Hecate.

It was now that Dumbledore stood up.

'I have received an anonymous note.' He said, holding up a piece of parchment the elves had slipped into his breakfast. 'Wishing to inform you that all portraits will open to the command 'Trick or Treat' and that they will follow a muggle tradition?' Dumbledore's twinkle in his eye was evident as he looked down on the marauders. They had sent Dumbledore this note on purpose, they thought he was they're best bet. If he didn't read it out, then they could spread the word by moth and actions, but this was a gamble that paid off. 'I trust that you will be careful, as asking any magical object to 'trick' you could prove a stupid mistake.'

The lessons of the day proved interesting, especially when they had charms. The pumpkin faces made it impossible to control the emotions on your face, and the Marauders usual antagonising of Professor Hecate saw unexpected results. Combined with the fact that everytime anyone with a pumpkin head tried to teach, their voice came out high and squeaky, almost no work was done.

In potions, Slughorn recognised the potion, though not how the pumpkins changed. When he asked his most suspicious suspects, the marauders, they were delighted and opened up to him about the potion bit. Slughorn had no intellect on how high level the enchantments were, merely that this was a high level potion. When he discovered that the werewolf had brewed the majority of it, he rethought his approach. Maybe even a werewolf could go far if he was that good at something.

Remus didn't get an immediate invitation to the slug club, as first years generally weren't invited, it was difficult to have a formal dinner with eleven year olds at the table, but Professor Slughorn was considering him for later years.

Many people were astounded by the the portraits, though muggle-borns or halfbloods were commonly found explaining the tradition. Many groups had offered a kind of sacrifice to each one, grabbing one of there friends and pushing then to the from while they said trick or treat. This worked on some, but when many jinxes were fired, under the enchantment of a scattering charm, no-one was safe.

In the Halloween feast, at the end Dumbledore stood up, yet again, though this time with a different intention.

'Now, today's events have evidently been very funny, could I now spasm the students who provided this mayhem to stand up. Dumbledore was fully expecting the marauders to stand up, he knew they weren't afraid of consequences, and were far to arrogant to be shy. What they did though was even better. Remus preformed the magic charm in his pocket that activated the fireworks from the corner of the room. After a small explosion in the charmed ceiling if the great hall, the sparks remained in the air spelling out 'BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MARAUDERS'

'Ah,' Dumbledore muttered, before speaking up again. 'Could the marauders please report to my office shortly after the feast? Thank you.'

The sparks then fell down, scattering across the hall. There was some chaos, before people realised that they weren't hot, and those who had screamed and in some cases hidden under the table were laughed at.

...

Ascending the staircase into Dumbledores office, James Sirius and Emily all had an adrenaline high, and were grinning. Remus and Peter were slightly less pleased with themselves, but weren't that scared.

Dumbledore was sat behind his desk, with 5 conjured chairs on the other side. As they sat down, he began to speak.

'I am disappointed, I must say. I had to watch enviously from afar, and all other teachers had high voices and an amazing pumpkins heads, while myself and Professor McGonagall were left with nothing. Though in my personal opinion, I don't think Professor McGonagall minded too much.' Dumbledore smiled benevolently.

'No offence meant sir.' James said, suppressing a smile.

'Yeah, we just weren't pranking Gryffindors, and I assumed...' Sirius continued.

'You assumed correct , though I 'assumed' that all the professors apart from the heads of houses where attending as pumpkins.'

Emily pulled a bottle of an orangey liquid out of her pocket. 'You can be a pumpkin if you really want to sir,' she said grinning.

'Alas, the opportunity has been missed, though if I could keep that?' Dumbledore gestured to the bottle of potion on the desk. After receiving nods, he held the potion up to the light, then set it back down again.

'May I ask what is it?'

'Er...' Remus answered. 'We don't really know what it's called, sir, just that it replaces the head with whatever you item you put into it last.'

'I see.' Dumbledore said. 'And what item would that be? A pumpkin, obviously, but I don't recognise the enchantments.'

'That'd be because we kind of made one up sir.' Peter said. 'Well, it wasn't mad up from scratch, merely combined 2 spells.'

'The one used on the staircases, to reflect emotions-' Emily informed.

'And the one used in marketing to make plants look better.' Peter finished, before anyone else could tell Dumbledore about the spell he found.

'And the Ravenclaws and Slytherins?' Dumbledore asked.

'Me and James learnt some alteration spells.' Sirius explained.

'The portraits?' Dumbledore enquirer once more.

'A charm to make them open on a password, then either sweets or self firing hexes.'Emily said.

'The fireworks were a Zonkos product?' Dumbledore guessed.

'How did you know.' James gasped.

'A couple of 7th year students tried something similar last year.' Dumbledore said, looking at Emily knowingly.

'Well, for the disruption and chaos caused today, I would give you'd detentions, but that would only aid in your competition. Instead, 100 points from Gryffindor.'

Ignoring the shocked faces of all of the marauders, Dumbledore continued. 'For excellent spell work on the portraits, 10 points each. For brewing a advances 5th year potion, Remus, i award you 50 points. For creating then performing a new spell, something not done in Hogwarts at all, I award Peter and Emily, 50 points each. And for mastering advanced transfiguration spells, I award James and Sirius 50 points. Unfortunately, for excluding your headmaster, -15 points.'

'Thanks sir!' James spluttered.

'We won't exclude you again.' Sirius said.

'Off to bed now, and beware of some of the portraits that have been left open. I think some people may have done it on purpose.

The marauders exited the room, astounded at Dumbledore's reaction.

...

A/N: 1000 words takes me over an hour to write, 1000-1500 is the average of chapters. This chapter is about 1600. A review takes a minute. Just something to think about


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Dont you hate that thing called writers block. I've just had a very strong dose of it! Sorry everyone, after posting updates twice daily I was creatively exhausted, and needed a week to recover. I'm back to my usual update schedule now. Thanks for still reading.**

**I started responding to reviews by PM, unless you are a guest, because I think having a long A/N annoyed people.**

...

Remus had been fully occupied and distracted before and directly after his transformation in late October. Unfortunately, his late November want quite as busy, and he dwelled on it quite a lot. Remus had long since accepted what he was, that he would spend 10% of his life from now on either sick because of his disease, healing after it, or going through the painful transformation and mindless rampage of being the wolf inside. It was just because he had a new life-style that he was dwelling on it as much lately.

Remus' way of coping was to never think about it that much, otherwise he got too depressed. Who wouldn't get depressed knowing that they couldn't live life to the full, because 10% they had no control over, that they would never marry, never have children of their own in fear of passing on their disease. When he thought of his future prospects, he always pictured himself at some kind of job interview, trying to explain his condition. Exams, result and expertise didn't matter if the prejudices were against what you were. Remus had figured all of this out when he was merely 8 years old, and had been close to tears.

No, Remus never dwelled on these thoughts too much, he just found pleasure in simple things, such as getting his Hogwarts letter, finding friends, and making people laugh. He was thinking of something to distract him from his morbid thoughts, and anticipation of the following day when he would again make a trip to the shrieking shack, and his new hobby sprung to the front of his mind: pranking.

The rest of the marauders had introduced him into this hobby, whether or not it was good or bad was not for him to decide. It provided a distraction, and allowed him to live life to the 90% it could be.

'Got anything planned for this Christmas?' Remus asked James, who was lying on his bed listening to music.

James switched his radio off, and with one swift movement he was sitting upright in his bed. 'What d'you mean planned?' He asked, he want sure if Remus was asking about a Christmas prank, or weather or not he were going home.

'You know, in the end of term celebration department?' Remus specified.

Emily looked up from the book she was reading, she was sat cross legged on the floor next to the window, leaning into the small alcove. 'I was thinking we should make it snow indoors? Nothing special, as it won't really be that near Christmas, we break up on the 15th.'

'Oh, are you going home?' Sirius asked in surprise.

'Of course, this is the longest I've gone without seeing my family, if I don't come home willingly, my mum might drag me! Aren't you?'

'You know what MY mum is like. I've spent the last decade trying to escape her by any legal means possible, there's a kneazle in hell chance that I'm going back for a Christmas visit.'

Remus re-entered the conversation, glad he'd sparked up interaction. Sirius' wizarding sayings never failed to make him smile. 'Kneazle in hell? Really? And I'm going home too.'

Peter was next to confirm he would also be boarding the Hogwarts express back to London, adding. 'I suppose it's like the muggle phrase 'cat in hell' Remus.'

'Never heard either.' James said bemused. 'I guess I'll just have to stay and keep you company then Sirius, as all of your other so called friends have failed.'

Sirius was secretly glad of this, but made light of it. 'Dealing with you on my own!' He said with mock horror. 'I'll take my psychotic mother any day.'

'Great mate you are!' James said indignantly, but he was smiling too. 'If you want, I could owl my parents and ask if you could stay over Christmas?'

'Yeah!' Sirius said enthusiastically. 'Do you think they'll let me?'

'Well, persuasion by owl is more difficult than persuasion face to face, but with 2 weeks I'm sure I can manage. I don't think they'll be that bothered anyway, my mum used to be a Black, even if our family's lost contact afterwards.'

'You mean yours didn't believe in the cult of pureblood supremacy bull.' Sirius confirmed. He was always open about his family, determined to establish himself as an individual, his contrast with his family aided him a bit in that.

'To put it bluntly...' James laughed.

'So, Emily, about the snow thing?' Remus asked.

'Oh, I'll find the spell soon, I just need everyone to be able to preform it, enchanting the whole castle ceiling in no easy job for one person.'

'I'll help you look for it.'

'Thanks.' She smiled warmly in his direction, before again angling her head sow. To the book on her lap.

They knew Remus was going away tomorrow, and they also thought they knew why, so they didn't antagonise him. The teasing was spread around the joke, with no-one being a continuing target. The banter they shared allowed them to make sure they never got too big-headed, by frequently pointing out each other's faults. The true friendship when you know someone well enough to insult them. Remus however was being spared of this, as they knew he would face something difficult the next day, even if they were mistaken in the details.

...

A/N: I was listening to Rizzle kicks, and they're fairly new song 'That's classic' just reminded me of the marauders, that showed me that I needed to write some more, otherwise the marauders just appear in my thoughts. It wasn't even the first time I'd listened to the song, but it's shy I wrote this, so go listen to it to see if its just me being crazy of not.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

**A/N: nearly went to sleep before I realised I owed you a chapter. I'm writing this at 2:30am, so sorry for any mistakes, I'll check it in the morning.**

...

It was Sunday the 15th of December, they would be travelling home Monday, and last night the marauders had charmed the whole castle ceilings to snow. It had taken them hours.

'You ready?' Emily called out, knocking on the boys dormitory door.

'Nearly, come in.' Sirius called back.

James quickly pulled a shirt on. 'Sirius! I was getting changed!'

Sirius shrugged un-remorsefully. 'Remus how long do you take in the bathroom!'

'I'm out!' Remus emerged, rubbing his hair with a towel. 'Have you got the skis?'

'Screw the skis, I'm having a snowboard!' James interrupted. 'Why would muggles strap bits of plastic to their feet!'

They had ordered skis, and in James and Emily's case, snowboards, from the post office in hogsmead. They had only just arrived in time, Emily had volunterred to get them from hogsmead this morning, so had been up since 5:30. Luckily, because of this she didn't charm the castle last night, the marauders insisting that whoever got them needed more than 2 hours sleep.

'Yeah I got them. James, why do wizards choose their main flying object a household cleaning device!'

'Aero-dynamics!'

'You don't even know what that is!' Emily burst out laughing.

'I know it's how you're plane things stay up! Though I still think a wizard invented them, and just confunded everyone trying to investigate how.'

'Stop arguing about Aero-what's its, we need to go for breakfast now or we'll have got up early for nothing.' Sirius raised his voice to be heard over the escalating argument.

..

They skied/snowboarded to the great hall, tanking great delight in the staircases, and challenging each other to see how far they could make it down the spiral staircases without crashing into a wall. The winner of this was James, using the advantage he had with a snowboard to push off the walls, ensuring he got all the way to the bottom. After a few failed attempts and crashes first of course, where James face made contact with the wall instead of his hand.

When they entered the great hall, James noticed Sirius' hair had hardly moved an inch, where as his was stuck up even more than usual, as was everyone else's.

'What's wrong with your hair!' He asked, in his imitable blunt manner.

'Wrong James? I see nothing wrong. Unlike yours of course.' Sirius was looking particularly smug, and James wanted nothing more than to mess up his perfect hair, and he tried, but found his hand couldn't get anywhere near Sirius' head.

'What the...?'

'Imperturbable charm.' Sirius boasted smugly. Emily burst out laughing.

'Where'd you find that idea, magical fashion and hair tips of the month!'

'No! I came up with it by myself!'

Remus shook his head in disbelief. 'You really are something else.'

...

The icy slopes of stairs and treacherous ground underfoot caused chaos, and the marauders found this very amusing. They were all around the castle all day, leaving them exhausted at the end of it, and barely able to pack their bags to go home.

'Can I definitely stay with you?' Sirius asked, for what James thought was the 1000th time.

'Yes, unless you ask that again! My parent were delighted I'd asked someone to stay, they want to meet my friends.'

'Must be a new experience for them.' Remus commented, throwing stuff into his trunk at random.

'Hey!'

...

After a long nights rest, they were all boarding the Hogwarts express back to the London. They watched the figure of the castle growing smaller out of the window as the train pulled away.

'Hogwarts feels like a second home already, I've only been there a few months.' Emily said nostalgically.

'Dont cry! we'll be going back in a few weeks.' Sirius said. He was ecstatically happy to be going to James' house for Christmas, but he wasn't letting it show too much on the outside. He had too much pride for that.

'I wasn't crying.' Emily objected indignantly. 'I was just saying it'll be weird to leave Hogwarts for the first time.'

'Well we've still got 6 and 2/3 ahead of us, and plenty more leaving scenes yet. This isn't anything special.' James stated.

'You had to ruin it.' Remus sighed, and the castle disappeared from sight.

...

**A/N: well only took me about 50 mins. It's 3:20 now tho so ima sleep. Thanks for reading.**


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N: my favourites actually went down on the last chapter! Ah well, here's another one, feel free to bring them back up!**

...

Chapter 31

They arrived at the station, and quickly spilt up, looking for their parents. As soon as Emily located her's, she practically ran into he dad's arms.

'Dad!' She said, choking up on what must have been concrete in her throat. 'Are you ok? How did the treatment go?!'

'I'm fine, love.' Her father answered returning the hug. 'I told you I would be, there's nothing to worry about.'

Emily hugged him harder, barely noticing that his voice sounded different. She was sure she could adapt. It was only then she turned to her mum.

Emily's mother wasn't the only one watching this scene, James and Sirius had also stumbled upon it.

'Are you sure that's Emily?' James asked Sirius rhetorically.

'I dont't know. When have you ever seen EMILY close to tears? Or, for that matter, hugging anyone?' Sirius replied. They were both confused at their friends behaviour.

'Do you think she'd tell us if there was anything wrong?' James asked.

'I'm not sure. It doesn't matter how close she is to someone, Emily doesn't seem to be the person who would blabber on about her personal problems and feelings.'

'Better not ask either. It'll just put her on the defensive route.'

At this moment, Dorea and Charlus Potter found them, and they're minds were quickly distracted.

Dorea quickly pulled James into a hug, before doing the same with Sirius. Sirius froze under show of affection, as he wasn't accustomed to it. Thinking back, he didn't think he'd been hugged like this since he was about 3. As soon as he'd started forming opinions, all hugs from his parents dried up. Hugging your brother just wasn't normal, especially in a pureblood family, hugging your mate's was just weird, or at least it was at 11 if they were boys. And as stated previously, Emily didn't do hugs.

Dorea released her embrace after noticing how stiff Sirius had gone.

'Hello, .' Sirius was unsure of how to address her. He didn't want to appear rude, but at the same time, calling the first person who had embraced him in years by this formal title didn't feel right either.

Dorea though, solved his internal crisis instantly. 'Why so formal Sirius?' She asked, restraining from making the joke 'why so serious'.

'I am your great aunt after all.'

Sirius didn't appear to know what to say to this, so she continued. 'Merlin, that makes me feel old. Don't call me that either please! Dorea will do fine for me.'

Charlus Potter now spoke up. 'I suppose that means I'm your great-uncle too.' He didn't seem to know what to make of this, he'd never really thought much about his wife's side of the family. Although her parents had approved of him marrying her at the time, after showing his political beliefs to the world, he didn't think he would be quite as accepted.

It was eventually James though, that broke this tense 'family renunion'.

'That messed with my mind. We're related!?'

Sirius continued this jokey phrase. Here was something he knew what to do. 'Of course we are, all purebloods are distantly related. I don't know what went wrong with your genes though, you obviously didn't inherit any of my charming looks.'

James ignored the insult. 'Wait, so you're my first cousin once removed right?'

Sirius eyes widened. 'You're my parents cousin?'

James groaned. 'I told you your family was messed up.'

They had successfully dispelled the tense atmosphere, and the Potters and Sirius portkeyed back to James house.

Remus had also met his parents on the platform. His mother as well had also hugged him fiercely, and asked how he was getting on. Remus assured her that his transformations were going fine, and apologised about having to lie about her heath.

'Nonsense!' His mother snorted on return. 'I'm just glad you have friends that care about you that much.'

This started Remus off about his friends and Hogwarts life, his parents were soon to be learning about the pranks they had masterminded.

Both his mother and his father were grateful as they listened to their son ramble. Here was the life they thought had been denied to him, and yet, their son was still here describing it to them. He received no reprimanding for his pranks, merely hearty laughs. His parents were proud to discover he was obviously very powerful with his magic as well.

Peter was also rambling on about his friends, and listened with Joy. As she heard for what must have been the 50th time about how the group that had dubbed themselves the marauders, she couldn't help but feel grateful. Peter had been drawn out of his shell, something she had to thank 11 year olds for. They were also having an influence on Peter in his academic life as well. Hearing him tell the story of how he and this other girl called Emily had created a new spell by combining 2 others, eased her doubts. She had thought Peter might be looked down upon in Hogwarts, she was convinced he was a squib herself for years. Instead, because of the marauders, he was here and happily telling her about his adventures.

...

A/N: sorry if it's a little bit shorter than usual


	32. Chapter 32

A/N: James' parents might seem overly generous, but just remember they are quite wealthy, and are technically Sirius' family anyway, and definitely spoiled James!

...

Chapter 32

Sirius awoke in the guest room at the potter household on Christmas Day. He'd never really got that excited by Christmas before, though his uncle Alphard usually sent him a present. His cousin andromeda usually got him something too, but since she'd gotten married to the muggle born Ted Tonks when he was 10, she had been cast out of the Black family, and grimmauld place had blocked her owls.

He hoped Emily, James, remus and Peter would get him something, he'd owled their gifts off a few nights ago. It was safe to say Sirius was looking forward to this Christmas, more than when he was 4 and still believed in Santa.

James Potter woke up a lot more elicited but not as early. He'd raced all the way to his parents room, before remembering Sirius.

James ran into the guest room, to see Sirius lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

'Sirius! It's Christmas.'

Sirius didn't get up. 'So?'

'So?' James repeated in disbelief. 'Presents!'

'Sleep! Best present of the universe!' Sirius sat up anyway, despite his good-natured protests.

'C'mon.' James said, grabbing Sirius' arm. 'Grab your stocking, we'll open them in your room.'

'Grab my what?'

'Stocking! Oh forget it I've got it.' To Sirius confusion, Sirius grabbed a red sock off the end of his bed, which looked like it belonged to Hagrid. He then followed an exited james to his room.

They sat cross-legged on James bed, and emptied out their stockings. Sirius noticed he had exactly the same as James. It wasn't anything big, just a few chocolate frogs, some every flavour beans, a trick wand and stuff like that. It was probably the most presents he'd got in one Christmas, even if they were small gifts. By the way James was causally treating them though, Sirius thought there was more.

Charlus and Dorea got up, wondering why James hadn't woken them like he usually did on Christmas. It wasn't like him to sleep late and forget. They entered James room to see his and Sirius having a fight with the toy planes that they had assembled. They were charmed to respond to the owners voice, so no magic was needed to control them.

'Up! UP!' James commanded urgently to his plane, as Sirius headed straight for it. His plane flew doggedly upward, one wing having already taken a battering. When it was almost directly above sirius's plane, James shouted.

'Nosedive!' Then gave a woop of victory, as Sirius plane went crashing to the ground.

Charlus picked up Sirius broken plane, and James victorious one.

'Reparo. I'm guessing your ready James?'

'Yeah! Can we go downstairs now?'

'Sure. We might have to invite Sirius round more often, that's the first time I've got a decent nights sleep on Christmas Eve.' Dorea laughed.

James raced downstairs, to a massive pile of presents. Sirius followed behind, and couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous. He knew James would be getting everything but the kitchen sink for Christmas, but he couldn't even spot one from Emily, Remus or Peter. He was pulled out of his wandering thoughts by Sirius lobbing a wrapped gift at him.

'Yours.' James said absent mindedly, tearing open wrapping paper. He looked up to Sirius standing there. 'Well come on! I'm not throwing you all of them!'

Sirius knelt behind James and began opening. His Uncle Alphard had gotten him that chess set. Apparently andromeda's owl knew where to go, as he got a present of them too. Emily sent him a load of pranking stuff. Peter sent him honeydukes sweets. Remus gave him a quill that writes by itself, with a note saying it was so he could keep his history of magic notes, and not have to correct his homework. Chuckling at Remus' gift, and almost imagining the sarcastic tone of his voice as he read the note, he glanced over at James.

James had gotten almost the same as Sirius from Emily Remus and Peter. He was now unwrapping a broom shaped object.

'Cleansweep 6!' James said, awed. 'Thats the new model!'

Sirius looked down at the pile of presents, and saw another suspiciously broom shaped object. Looking at the tag, he was amazed to find his name on it. He was even more amazed to find another cleansweep 6.

'Thanks.' He said sincerely, looking up at Dorea and Charlus. 'But it's too much. Let me put something towards it-'

'No, then it wouldn't be a Christmas present!' Charlus shot him down. 'And you needed a good broom, your playing on my side later. 2 aside quidditch, James and Dorea against me and you. I know you can't bring it to Hogwarts yet, you can just use it when you visit until second year.'

Sirius turned to James, with a massive smile. 'You're going down!'

James and Sirius then gave Dorea and Charlus their presents. It was a small replica of both of them, charmed to duel on voice command.

Charlus immediately challenged his wife. 'Whoever loses makes breakfast?'

'It's on!' Dorea said laughing, placing it down on the table.

James groaned theoretically. 'Come on dad! Don't subject to your cooking.'

'Cheeky sod.' Charlus admonished casually. They tried them out, and halfway through, Charlus commanded 'stupify' only for nothing to happen.

'Thats not fair! Mines broke!' He said outraged as the small red stones showing his Heath in a container replicating the house points went down when Dorea hit him with a spell.

'No it's not, you need to wait for the energy level.' James delighted in telling him. He and Sirius had put a lot of complex thought and effort into these. 'Say "energy show."

Charlus did so, and a duplicate of the Heath bar appeared next the old one on his replicas back. This one had blue crystals, and it was slowly filling up.

'Stupify is a powerful spell, it takes about half energy.' Sirius informed them.

The duel continued, Dorea won, and James declared that he was going to starve.

...

Emily opened her presents on Christmas Day. It was mainly muggle stuff off her parents, though they had carefully avoided technology, aware she wouldn't be able to use it. John had gotten her what looked like half his shop. She had gotten her dad the opposit of Remus' gift to Sirius. Instead of talking to a quill and it writing, she had gotten him a pen which talks what you write, as she knew he had trouble speaking now. She got her mum perfume, which was spiked with armortentia, and got john a small version of Hogwarts castle.

...

Peter wasn't expecting much this Christmas, he knew his mother had scraped together what she would to let him go to Hogwarts. He got a lot of small objects that his mother had charmed herself, but he appreciated them as a lot of thought had obviously gone into to them.

...

Remus got quite a few books for his birthday, not something he was annoyed about. They were wither fiction, or interesting books on magic. He also got chocolate. A lot of chocolate.

...

A/N I realise the last couple of chapters have been a bit fillerish, but something is coming up soon! Can you guess what?


	33. Chapter 33

...

**A/N: thanks for reviewing! I got 3 on the last chapter ( not on the lasted chapter I posted, but because of the update)**

**_Guest(1)_****: Thanks!**

**_Guest(2)_****: yeah I'll check it now, I think that might have been the chapter I uploaded at 3:00 am... Thanks for the review!**

...

The Marauders met back at the platform on January 5th.

'Good Christmas?' Emily asked to Sirius and James in way of greeting.

'Yeah.' They said at the same time. They then looked at each other and laughed.

'Looks like spending so much time together has turned you into twins!'

'No, it was-' They turned and scowled at each other, as they had said it in unison again.

'Right!' James said speaking first, and glaring at Sirius as if daring to speak with him. 'Are Remus or Peter here yet?'

'No, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you.' Emily insulted casually.

'I hope it snows.' Sirius sighed wistfully, completely out of the blue.

'Ok, random change of subject there. Why have you developed a crush on frozen rain?' James teased.

'Because it never snows here, we've not had a white Christmas for ages. I heard in Scotland it snows all the time though.' Sirius explained, still dreamily thinking about snow.

'Why would we be going to Scotland?' James asked, sincerely confused.

Emily stared at him. 'Sometimes I don't know if your being serious- shut up Sirius- or if you are actually that stupid!'

'I'm being seri-' James glanced at Sirius' expression, they had come to hate that joke, as Sirius never thought that it got old. It did.

'I'm not joking.' he amended.

'Hogwarts is in Scotland you plonker!' Remus broke this news to James.

James and Sirius spun around to face him. 'Where the hell did you come from?!' They asked simultaneously, and Emily cracked up again.

'I've been here for the past few minutes, but Sirius was too heavily anticipating a Sirius/Serious joke, and you 2 were facing away.'

They greeted Peter on the platform, then boarded the Hogwarts express to return to Hogwarts one more. To Sirius' delight, the ground became more progressively white as the journey went one, and it soon went from a slightly frosted field to a half a foot of snow.

They arrived at Hogwarts, and the lake had frozen over. Not all of it, but the shallower bits were solid enough to hold someone's weight. James proved this by sliding along. Sirius attempted to knock him off balance, only for James to pull him along with him. They continued this 'last man standing wins' computation, until a professor screamed at them to get in the carriage because it was freezing, and they were hungry.

The next few weeks, all homework was forgotten in pursuit of playing in the snow. The Marauders spent hours outside each night, even laying off getting detentions because they actually wanted to go out. They found that although snow delighted them, it annoyed a lot of other people. They were working on getting snowmen to fight each other, then target the nearest people, like a 'robot army' as Emily put it, or 'snowbot army' which everyone cringed at when Remus said. Unfortunate though, all good times must come to an end, and it wasn't just the end of the month signifying it was Remus's time to transform. It came in the voice of an announcement.

'Students of Hogwarts.' Dumbledore's voice echo'd of the walls of the great hall, immediately grabbing the attention of everyone eating dinner. 'I regret to inform you that the snow has unfortunately become too deep for you to play in 'safely'. The way Dumbledore said 'safely', he made it quite clear that these weren't his rules. 'Therefore, you will have to stay in the castle.' This was meet with an upheaval of disappointment as muttering of students voices filled the hall.

'Classes will still be on.' The school again groaned. 'Though herbolgy will be suspended until further notice, as will care of magical creatures.'

...

Later that week, Remus told his friends that he had to go and visit him mum again. Their reactions were that they would do anything themselves to get out of the castle again. Remus himself had no-idea how this was going to work, but he was sure Dumbledore would have figured it. It was nice to have the difficulties of his disease helped with, and it just reinforced the belief that Hogwarts was his second home.

'Hey, remus, do you know when you're going to be visiting in advance?' Emily asked.

'Yeah, we've organised it.'

'Ok, good. I got a calendar for Christmas, I'm just going to use it for scheduling pranks, but I need to know if you'll be there or not.'

'Sure, we'll do it now, quick before I go.' Remus said, relived that that was all.

When Emily pulled the calendar out however, Remus froze. 'Why'd it have a moon on the front?' He asked trying to sound causal.

'Oh, all my grandparent know about what I learn here is that astronomy once a week, so naturally they got me a calendar showing moons and planets and stuff. It just shows you how full the moon is, and when planets are visible without using magical equipment.' Emily shrugged, the universally understood sign for, 'it's nothing much.'

Remus gave her the dates of his absence, and just hoped she didn't make the connection. Wishing that it was James who got the moon calendar for Christmas, Remus went to see Dumbledore.

...

**A/N: Remus is off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz! I've always wanted to say that about Dumbledore.**


	34. Chapter 34

** A/N: thanks for reading. Skip the rest on the AN, just responding to a comment.**

**_Anonymouse_****: I was really worried about this the first time I posted this story ( I had to take it down because I got a a new ipad) and I think I annoyed everyone by asking if Emily seemed like a Mary-Sue. Out of about 4000 reads, if you count both times I posted it, only 2 people have ever thought this. Sorry if you don't like reading about Emily, Mary-Sueism is something I've tried my hardest to avoid. I would really appreciate it if you could give me reasons of why you think Emily is suffering from this terrible disease, and list the symptoms so I can devise a cure. (I'm not being sarcastic by the way, it kinda sounds like it) You only read until about chapter 7 as well, if you read the next 25 chapters, you might find my writing gets better. Whenever I read over the first few chapter of my own story I know I cringe! Remember: Reasons and evidence it what makes flames turn into constructive criticism**.

...

The snow continued to cave them in the castle, and it was affecting everyone's spirits. Tension was running high, especially those studying for owls and newts, who couldn't even go for a walk outside to clear their heads. It was even affecting the marauders spirits, for the first time they couldn't be bothered pranking anyone.

Dumbledore had been considering this, so when his head boy and girl came up to him with a proposal to lift the spirits if the school, he encouraged it immediately.

'I have an announcement to make.' Dumbledore stood up at dinner. Everyone fell silent. Last time Dumbledore announced something, it was as out the snow, so most of them looked at him with slight apprehension now. 'As the snow shows no signs of getting better, the hogsmead weekend on valentines day will have to be cancelled.'

Groans sounded from the years 3 and above.

'Because of this, the head boy and head girl, have decided to organise a valentines dance. Anyone can go, but you can't come alone.'

Mutterings filled the hall, soon turning into full blown talking when they realised Dumbledore was finished.

...

A few days later, the marauders were sat in the boys dormitories.

James was slumped back on his bed. 'This is hopeless. How are we going to get 5 girls to go to the ball!'

'4.' Emily reminded him. 'You may not have noticed, but I am a girl.'

'Still 4! It's impossible!'

'3.' Peter informed them. 'I've already asked someone.'

'Right well that just makes me feel even more depressed.' James said exasperated.

'Who is she and what's wrong with her?' Sirius asked.

Peter frowned. 'She's called Katy March. Nothing's wrong with her. It's the girl we followed to the kitchens. Second year Hufflepuff?'

Sirius looked at peter in disbelief. 'She was fit, why the hell did she say yes to you! Are you sure she doesn't have brain damage?'

'Shut up, Sirius.'

'Right so you three need to convince 3 unlucky girls to put up with you for a few hours.' Emily smiled.

James suddenly turned towards her. 'Emily...' He began in a whiney voice, giving her the puppy eyes. 'You're a girl-'

'No, I won't go with you. If one of you three can't find a date I will, but there isn't 3 of me, and you need to at least try first.'

'Fine.' James huffed. 'Tomorrow,' he said to Sirius and Remus, 'We need to just suck it up and ask. 2 out of 3 of us need to come back here with dates.'

...

The following day, Sirius and James approached Mary McDonald and Lily Evans. Emily had told them about Amy Mulciber and Sophie Ogden, and as both hated people who believed in pureblood supremacy, they stayed away.

'Hey Evans.' James greeted. Lily glared at him. Emily winced, she Peter and Remus were watching this, as they expected it to be funny. James had made his first mistake. Use of last name. if they weren't on first name terms, you just shouldn't greet them by their name at all.

'Hey.' Sirius nodded towards Mary, who smiled. 'So, are you going to the ball on valentines day?' Sirius asked feeling awkward. He wasn't sure how to just come right out and say it, so he made small talk instead.

'Maybe. Not sure yet, no-one's asked me and Professor Dumbledore said that you needed a date.' Mary replied. She knew what Sirius was trying to get at, and decided to make it easy for him. After all, she did want to go.

Sirius looked surprised, but grateful, and had more self-confidence that she wouldn't reject him now. 'Do want to go with me? It'd be a shame if you weren't there, after all.' Sirius shot her a winning smile.

'I suppose it would be a shame, I guess I'll have to go with you then.' Mary teased, but Sirius didn't seem to mind. Pure relief was spread across his face. They continued to talk, the tension and awkwardness depleting by the second.

James was having less luck with Lily. Apart from a few fundamental mistakes, and coming over as overly arrogant because he was nervous, Emily didn't think he'd done that bad. But Lily did hate them, and she had to admit James had been no-where near charming enough to win her round. James had been adamant that he wanted to ask Lily though, despite their protests that it wouldn't work.

'No, potter. I've not already got a date, I just do to want to go with you!' Lily said heatedly. After rejecting him nicely at first, he'd continued to pester her, and Lily's patience wasn't known for bing good.

James stopped himself from wincing at the tone if her voice. 'I bet you'll end up going with Snivellus then!' He said, attempting to gain back some of his pride.

'I will if he asks me.' Lily said, not perturbed at all.

'Come on! You're better than that! Would you really chose Him over me?' Lily hated anyone insulting Severus, or worse pranking and humiliating him. Since James had previously done all three and was doing one again now, Lily chose her words to have the most impact, and to get James to leave.

'Potter, if it was a choice between you and a giant squid, I'd pick the squid.' Lily smiled coldly, then turned away.

Muttering something about 'just as greasy' James ran his hand through his hair and turned away, walking dejectedly back to the maraudersThe marauders couldn't stop laughing. They had been expecting him to be shot down, both of them actually. Sirius' success was more than made up for by how bad Lily had been.

Sirius managed to keep a straight face, long enough to console him. 'Brutal, mate.' He then also burst out laughing.

'Great friends you are!' James huffed. He was determined to make up for this, and find a date. Over the course of the day, he asked two more first years. The first looked apologetic, and said that somebody had already asked her but the second said yes. James was going to the ball with Isabel Dubbs, a muggle-born first year Ravenclaw.

Remus also asked someone, he didn't have a problem about going with Emily,but he didn't think James would have the courage to get a date now, because he'd been so brutally rejected. He asked a first year Hufflepuff, who he had noticed had been staring at him in defence against the dark arts. Well no, he hadn't noticed, Emily had though, and had informed him that girls generally stare when they like someone, without noticing they're doing it.

To his relief Laura Doge said ok, in a quite voice. She was quite shy herself, which made Remus like her. He always seemed overshadowed when around Emily Sirius and James, but when he was talking with Laura, he felt like his personality had come to life. Laura found Remus genuinely funny, and because Remus lived the sound of her laugh, he made jokes all the time.

They 'reported' back to the dormitory, astounded to find that 3/3 of them had managed to find a date. James realised something though. 'Emily, who'll you go with?'

'Not sure, still got about a week yet. No-one's asked me yet.'

'Do you want me to cancel?' James asked seriously. He knew how much Sirius Remus and Peter liked their dates, so he was prepared to offer.

'God no!' Emily shot down. 'Thats just mean! You only asked her today. And anyway, all I have to do it wait and hope for the best, you actually had to ask people.' Emily smirked. It was times like these when she actually liked tradition.

'It's so much easier for girls!' Sirius sighed, shaking his head.

'Well, yeah, but if no-one asks you... It's very easy to get insecure and feel unwanted.' Emily for once had something serious to say.

'You won't get insecure if someone doesn't ask you!' Sirius snorted. 'Thats bull. It's much worse being rejected.'

'I won't, but others do. Being rejected as brutally as James was-' Emily smiled at him fleetingly, and he glared back. '-probably is worse, but girls are generally more in touch with their feelings. The majority of people that cut themselves, or suffer from depression are girls.'

'You calling me heartless?' Sirius mocked, laughing.

'No, I'm just saying if Mary had asked you to go with her, and you told her that you'd rather go with Snivellus, or the giant squid, she'd probably cry.'

'I'd cry if I had to go to the ball with Snivellus!' Sirius wrinkled his nose in disgust.

...


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N: sorry for the late update, my internet was down! First real description of Emily :| tell me if I mess up. Eyyyy, I'm not good at romance :(**

**...**

It was Saturday morning, and Emily was walking down to the kitchens alone. She had slept in so had missed breakfast and lunch. It was also 3 days until the ball, and no-one had asked her yet. What she'd said to Sirius played back mockingly in her head. She supposed she had believed someone would ask her, given time, as she wasn't the _worst_ looking in the school, but now she though about it, she doubted most people had even registered her as a girl. She knew they didn't think she was a _boy_, just knew that they, in the same way as James had, didn't really consider her, well, 'dateable'.

She knew her appearance didn't do anything for her, she had plain brown hair, a large nose, round face and sparkling blue eyes. But no-one remembered eyes most people didn't know what their friends eye colour was, and blue eyes wasn't exactly rare. As she thought of this she smiled.

'Only 10% of people on the world have blue eyes, you know.' Her dad had told her when she was about 6.

She remembered how she'd rolled her eyes, and responded with a far more down to earth response. 'Yeah, but _Dad_, that's over 400,000 people.'

Emily shook her head, to clear her head of memories. She looked down at herself. She had broad shoulder, which made wearing robes unfortunate, as they hung straight down. She was by no means thin, and couldn't be she suspected, even if she bothered to lose weight. It sounded like an overused excuse for obese people, but she actually was big boned. And yet she'd never really considered herself fat, merely just not skinny.

Emily smiled to herself. She'd probably be depressed if she cared. But she didn't.

'And that's the best thing.' She said to herself. Because Emily didn't care. She remembered one of her friends from her muggle school asking her if she would still be the same way, even if she was the most beautiful person on earth. She reply first with a joking remark:

'Are you implying that I'm not?

Butthat didn't work, and he still fell silent waiting for a response.

'No, I still wouldn't care.' It seemed more like the truth to her the more she thought about it.

Emily again shook her head, clearing the moment of insecurity she had entertained for almost 5 minutes, smiled to herself and continued on her way.

...

Toby Abbot had left his book in the library. He hated that, as there was a good chance madam pince would have squirrelled it away, and never let him have it back. He walked from Ravenclaw tower alone, no-one could be bothered to go with him because is was such a long way, and probably fruitless anyway. He contemplated the valentines ball situation, and groaned. Why did it have to be on valentines day! Then there was no-way you'd be able to fully convince a girl that you were just going as friends.

He'd thought of one girl, who he knew probably wouldn't question it. The only problem was, if she said no, he was way more scared of a crowd of laughing revenge-seeking pranking marauders then he was of a group of giggling girls. And Emily never seemed to go anywhere without them! Or if she did, she wasn't seen because she didn't want to be. He'd understood that girls normally travelled in packs, but now found it equally irritating when boys did it as well. And even if he did manage to get he on her own to ask he was convinced she'd be going with Peter or something. A girl only wanting to go for friendship would probably already asked by her friends.

He looks up, and saw Emily meandering towards him, smiling to herself, apparently not noticing him yet.

'Speak of the devil.' He muttered to himself, before looking up and catching her eye.

...

Emily was nearly at the portrait with the pear that she needed to tickle like James said, when she saw Toby. She didn't mind Toby, they usually worked together in charms, when professor Hecate split the marauders up, but she was hungry, and could have done with no-one wanting to talk now. Catching his eye, she realised he did. Crap.

Toby smiled at Emily. 'Where you going?' He asked in a friendly voice.

'The library.' Emily improvised. It wasn't that she didn't want Toby to know about the kitchens, it was just that... She didn't want to spill a marauder secret.

'Thats this way.' Toby grinned, indicating to the way he'd been walking.

'Theres a shortcut a few corridors down.' Emily improvised again. There was in fact, it's just not where she was going. She smiled back, though she didn't know why. Toby had interrupted her quest for food, and everyone who'd done that previously had ended up dealing with a grumpy Emily. 'I though all Ravenclaws would know the shortcuts to the library.'

'Apparently not.' Toby said, and changed the direction he was walking. 'So, how come you're alone?'

Rather then replying with the evasive I could ask you the same thing, she said. 'Can you imagine Sirius and James and Peter in the library?'

'No actually.'

'Thats probably a good thing. We went in there on the first week because Remus and I wanted to study, and Sirius James and Peter built book castles, then tried to knock each other's down with books enchanted to float."

'Good use of the first charm we were taught.' Toby smiled wryly, noticing how Emily's eyes lit up when she was talking about the marauders antics.

'Yeah, well, they were banned for a year. And me a month. Apparently guilty by association.' Emily snorted.

'So the Marauders? Who are they going to the ball with? After all the pranks you've pulled, I'd imagine they had the pick of 1st year. I know for a fact that James asked someone I was going to.' Toby said all of this very fast, wondering why he was feeling so nervous. Emily looked at him intently.

'Yeah, well, James got rejected by Lily Evans at first.' She told him, still studying his body language. It wasn't uncommon for her to do this, it was how she read people. She could almost always tell when the marauders were lying, if she looked closely enough.

'Lily doesn't seem to like him very much. I suppose its cause she likes Snape. I heard they're going together.'

Emily's eyes sparkled mischievously. 'Wait till I tell James!' She said, more to herself.

'Oh god, why do I feel like I've signed his death warrant?' Toby asked amused.

Emily appeared no to hear. 'Have you ever wondered what Snivellus would look like with a cheering charm?'

Toby laughed. 'Right.' He thought to himself. 'Just ask. Emily didn't mention anything about going with anybody, and she's hardly going to mention that no-one had asked her, so just ask!' Why did he feel so nervous. He only wanted to go as friends.

'Wouldyouliketogotothedance. Asfriends ?' He said very quickly.

'All I heard there was dance. And friends. But I got the gist. Sure.'

Toby grinned, glad he didn't have to repeat it.

'Can you dance?' Emily asked, suddenly looking worried.

'No...' Toby said uncertainly. He didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to say no either.

Emily's reaction was the exact opposite of what he'd expected. 'Thank Merlin. I was worried that I'd have to dance. I assure you, it's like an elephant on skates.'

Toby let out a relived laugh, picturing an elephant on skates in his mind.

...

Emily made her way back down to the kitchens. They'd walked together for a bit more, talking comfortably. Emily had taken out a book, as an excuse to go to the library. They're conversation has been funny, so she didn't question why she couldn't stop smiling then, but when Toby walked off, and her face wouldn't relax, she wondered why.

'Strange.' She thought, but then her thoughts drifted back to Toby, and she didn't care she was grinning like an idiot anymore.

...

A/N: Not sure about this chapter, like I said, not good with romance, let me know what you think. It's also a bit longer, to make up for the delay, otherwise I would have been really mean and given you a cliff hanger. :)

MaraudersForever62


	36. Chapter 36

...

A/N: Sorry! It's been a while. School stuff caught up with me, as did sleep. I'm updating now and should be back to my usual schedule soon.

...

The valentines ball started at 7:30. The Marauders hadn't wanted to be too early, so they had arranged to meet their dates there around 8:00. Emily had also not told James about Lily and Snape. She hadn't purposely kept the information from him, merely forgotten in the strange euphoria after Toby had left.

The Marauders drifted off when they arrived, keeping company with their partners. Emily and Toby immediately headed for the tables to the side of the dance floor, nearest the big table of food running along one wall.

'Looks like Cupid threw up in here.' Toby remarked, looking up at the floating hearts and streams of pink ribbons.

Emily snorted, it summed up the room critically but perfectly in under 10 words.

'I wish I could make those thing throw up. Or just shut them up.' She indicated to small cherubs flying round the room, charmed to sing and play a harp. At that exact moment one of them opened its mouth and spewed glitter and small paper hearts all over her.

With a look of extreme distaste, Emily, shook her hair in an attempt to remove the worst of the debris. Toby was laughing at the irony of it, and Emily shot him a glare.

'I didn't mean like that.'

'1 galleon Professor Dumbledore designed and enchanted these himself.' Toby muttered, casting a glance in the headmasters direction, who seemed to be looking at Emily and smiling.

'Well I can't see Hecate doing it!'

'I dunno... Might be why it sprayed you.'

Emily grinned again, still picking bits of glitter out of her hair.

'So, you want a drink?' Tony asked, referring to a bowl of punch, the same sickly shade of pink as the rest of the room.

'I'd avoid that actually.' Emily advised. 'I think James and Sirius slipped something in it, but Remus refused to help them with the potion, so it probably went wrong.'

'And this is why I asked you here.' Toby said smiling wryly. Toby and Emily continued to talk, the banter flowing easily, occasionally switching to something more intellectual, before regaining its usual humour. Toby started commentating on couples in the room and some particular styles of dancing, frequently broken up with his and Emily's laughter.

...

Sirius and Mary had talked for a bit, then Mary had inevitably headed over to talk to Lily as well. This would have been fine except for the fact that Sirius and Snape couldn't bear to next to each other for that long. Sirius split off to find James, when it became clear Snape wasn't going to leave.

He found him charming Isabel while eating at on of the tables to the side.

'Slimeball eight o'clock.' Sirius greeted him with.

James glanced behind him to his left, and sure enough saw Lily with Snape. James face hardened for a moment, and he seem genuinely bewildered and shocked. Then he removed all unwanted emotion and turned back. 'Later.' He confirmed, nodding at Isabel. Even James knew it wasn't a good idea to confront the girl who was your first choice in front of your current date, especially if it was about that subject.

'Ok.' Sirius responded, and headed over to where Remus was sat.

...

Remus glanced at Laura, then his eyes quickly darted away again. At 11, and shy to boot, neither one had wanted to make the first move. Eventually, Laura commented on something she knew Remus liked: Chocolate.

'For a valentines feast, you'd think they'd have heart shape chocolate or something.' She said, more to break the silence then anything else.

'Surprising isn't it?' Remus grinned. It felt like fate was on his side tonight. About time, life in general owed Remus a few favours to candle stuff out. 'Guess its good that I brought you some myself then.' Remus reached into his pocket and enlarged a small box into a substantially bigger size.

Laura smiled, touched at the thoughtfulness, then looked a bit bewildered. 'But how did you get them? They're from honeydukes-'

Remus smiled at her ability to recognise chocolate.

'And we didn't know about the Dance in the holidays.'

Remus smiled mysteriously. 'Magic.' In reality. The marauders had headed down to hogsmead yesterday, to stock up.

'Very funny.' Laura said, rolling her eyes slightly. At that moment Sirius bounded up the them, and that eased the tension slightly. Sirius confidence was bordering on arrogance, but at the same time, it did break down uncomfortable boarders so for once Remus was grateful.

After about an hour, the formal couples had almost fully dispersed, and people were now mingling freely. It was about this time when Sirius and James went to confront Snape. Toby made a remark about a heading collision, and Emily looked up to see James and Sirius heading for Snape.

'Crap.' She said softly under her breath. Then she turned to Toby, who oddly enough hadn't brought himself to go and talk with his own friends yet, like most of the other couples. Emily thought his probably because they just went as friends in the first place. 'We might want to watch this.'

Remus wasn't sure if he had a sixth sense for sensing trouble because he was a werewolf, or because of his current friends were, but he could sense it. Either way, he looked up and saw James heading towards Snape at that exact moment. Sirius had told him all about Snape and Lily before, so he at least knew what it was about. Putting down a cup of punch that was there for de rotational purposes only, he had no intention of drinking it, he swore softly, and went to try and head James off.

...

A/N: Yea I'm back! Exited for the long built up confrontation? I am, cause I don't know exactly how it's going to go yet! You'd better hope the marauders visit me in my dreams and tell me! (Reviews can sometimes inspire these visits... ;)


	37. Chapter 37

Remus and Emily arrived just in time to hear James speaking to Lily with a bewildered expression.

'-When you said you'd rather go with either Snivellus or the giant squid I actually though you'd pick the squid first.'

'Wouldn't it have been easier to go with the LESS slimy option.' Sirius said snidely, eyeing Snape with utmost dislike.

'Potter asked you!?' Snape turned on Lily. His face was unreadable.

'I said No!' Lily muttered, almost defensively.

'Right. Right.' James said. 'Well, let me clean up your date a bit Evans, it looks like it's not showered in about a year.' James threw the potions spiked punch all over Snape. Immediately, any hair that came into contact with it turned a bright luminous pink, but somehow still looked as greasy, and any skin turned a bright magenta.

'You arrogant mop-headed prat.' Snap spat, sending a hair thickening curse at James' head. It hit, and James' already wild hair grew in all directions until he could no longer see.

At this, Sirius eyes hardened, and Emily's jaw set, as they both fired jinxes at Snape with super-sonic speed. Sirius his him with the bat bogey hex, difficult to master, and even more difficult to undo, and a jinx which made the victim sprout green boils. Emily hit him with a particularly powerful cheering charm. There was a bolt of dark blue light shooting out of Snape's wand in retaliation, and another out of Emily's, but these both his the invisible barrier that had been erected between them. Snape was stood with bright magenta skin, luminous pink hair, oozing green boils, with bat bogeys hanging from his face, and a smile with a cheerful, if unwanted, attitude to top it off.

'Enough!' Came Professor McGonagall's stern voice, and both parties stopped firing hexes, though this might have had something to do with the shield preventing them.

'Potter! Black! Patterson! My office now!' The three offenders could do nothing but grin at each other briefly, and follow behind.

James bumped into the wall on the way out, missing the door by about a foot. 'I can't see.' He stated briefly.

Professor McGonogall did not semi to eager to help him, so Sirius severed the overgrown fringe with a jinx, allowing James to see, but still leaving his hear think, long and stuck up in all directions. James' hand briefly darted to the tufts now left of his fringe, and hoped Madam Pomfrey could reverse it. If they ever got out of detention, that is.

...

'What do have to say for yourselves?' McGonogall glared at them font he other side of the desk.

They had been listening to her rage for the past 10 minutes, about the irresponsibility of their actions (James was now doubting if this was actually a word), and the fact that they ruined a huge social event (Sirius didn't think they'd ruined it , merely made it more interesting).

Professor McGonogall didn't either didn't want an answer from this, or didn't expect one, because when all 3 were silent, she continued regardless.

'All 3 of you will apologise to , potter, you will serve 1 week of detentions with me, Black and Patterson, for firing the hexes, you will spend 2. And 30 points will be taken. Each.' Professor McGonagall was never as tough on the majority of other members on her house, normally one detention would have sent a first year into distress. But the Marauders didn't care, and that was what annoyed her. She had to overdo the punishments, otherwise they wouldn't have any affect at all.

James gasped at the last part, thinking it entirely unfair. He would earn the points back. The Marauders had gotten worried about how they were affecting their house, so had created a tally about how many points they received and lost. All of them were in positive numbers at the moment, but he knew this would knock the three of them back into negative, so they would have to work really hard in lessons for a bit to get them back.

Emily was opposed to something else. 'I'm not apologising.'

McGonagall's expression puckered. 'Why ever not ?' He time was as cold as ice, and there was steely hint to it.

'To be sorry means that if you could go back, you would change what you did. I would not change a thing. I don't like to lie.' Emily stopped her voice from shaking, and was quite proud, considering the extent of McGonagall's wrath.

McGonagall's expression soured even further. 'Why would that be? Surely you have no real reason for your actions and acted out of anger?'.

Sirius though knew the answer to this one. 'But sniv- Snape hexed James!' He stated, as if that explained it all. 'I'm not apologising either. He deserved it and I'd do it again.'

'If you show no remorse for your actions, you can always double your detentions.' Seeing how relieved Emily, and Sirius looked, she added. 'And double the points.' Emily and Sirius shared a look which she wished she could interpret.

'Ok.' Sirius relied, apparently speaking for both of them. McGonagall hadn't expected this, she thought they would back down in the face if this.

' ?' She asked, arching an eyebrow.

'I'm not either.'

She sighed and dismissed them. Stupid Gryffindor pride.

...

James, Sirius and Emily brought back the news of their detentions, and deducted their house points on the tally. Emily was now at -39, Sirius at -37 and James had -33. It was admittedly harder for Sirius and Emily to earn points, as the teachers of the subject they excelled in, hated them. Remus asked why James hasn't gotten 4 wells like Emily and Sirius.

'because Jamesie here is Minnie's little transfiguration specialist.' Sirius answered affectionately ruffling James hair.

'Gerrof!' James scowled batting away Sirius hand. 'And it was because I didn't have time to get a jinx in edge ways, the little slime all made my hair grow to blind me. He'll pay for that.'

...

At first, although Snape and the marauders could never be called friends, there hadn't been much serious animosity between them. All that had happened was Snape was rude to James and Sirius on the train, resulting in him being the blunt if a few of their jokes behind his back, and the occasional prank. Now though, things had changed. James, accompanied by Emily and Sirius spent almost every spare moment plotting against him. This wasn't a lot, considering the amount of detentions they had because of him, but detentions generally weren't to mentally challenging, and they plotted there as well. It was small menial things, which built upon each other, such as dying his hair pink, casting a garbling spell unknowingly so everything he said turned into non-sensical babbling. Things that invaded his life, like putting exploding snap cards around his bed and dorm room, and hiding his books. Everything they thought of they did, until Sirius came up with something which made Lily Evans blow her temper.

...

A/N: Sorry about another cliff hanger, but this chapter was too long already. The fifth marauder and Snape relation is difficult to handle, most writers have their character replicating Remus' behaviour, or even Lily's. I've never seen one replicate Peter or sirius and James, as they don't want their character to have a malicious streak. Most will deny any participation in the bullying, and the better authors will allow their characters to admit they never did anything to stop it either, making it look like a fault. But no, I strive to be different, as always and I herby declare that my OC Emily Patterson will hate Snivellus Snape for no other angsty reason then that he is a slimy git, and practices the dark arts despite not coming from a dark family. Oh, and he stole James crush.

Let me know what you think about this... Still not entirely sure.


	38. Chapter 38

Sirius was reading about magical maladies and diseases, in bed at night. He and James were trying to find out more about the disease Remus' mother had, to see if they could research a cure. They knew he didn't like to talk about it, so they kept the questions to a minimum. One thing they knew was that it was slightly better on the full moon. They had asked Remus why he always visited his mother roughly once a month, but not exactly, and he had confessed to them this.

While reading this book, Sirius got to a chapter, 'make your own Malady mayhem'. It was a chapter on how to create a small, relatively weak disease, that was passed on by touch. It was so easy to make, because there was no way of spreading it, when someone passed it on, they lost it. There were various ways to pass it on, touch, coughing, water, air. You could also make 'symptoms' of your disease, being up to 3 minor curses. Sirius began to scheme unknowingly, his brain working at the speed of knots. He reached a conclusion and jumped out of bed, and bounded over to James'.

'Oi,' Sirius whispered, shaking James awake.

'Piss off Sirius.' James grumbled, his pillow at him. He hated being woken.

'No, look. I've got an idea.'

'I don't give one.' James said turning over. Or words to that effect. James had a foul mouth when grumpy.

'No, it's about Snivellus.'

'I don't have time to listen to you talk about your crush, I'm trying to get to sleep.'

'Hey!' Sirius whispered-shouted indignantly, shoving James. 'Just look! And he's not my crush!'

'You're in denial.' James reluctantly sat up, rubbed his eyes and glared at the book Sirius was holding, as if it had personally offended him. 'What am I supposed to be looking at exactly?'

'You can create a disease. With curses and stuff as symptoms.'

'Great. Create one with the silencing charm on. Oh, and then get infected.' James dismissed, starting to lye down again.

'Listen, we can make...' Sirius paused for dramatic effect. 'The Snivellus Touch.'

James finally stood up and began to take notice.

...

James and Emily burst into the boys dormitory. Sirius and Peter, who had been creating their disease looked up.

'Where's Snivellus?' Sirius asked.

'Thigh deep in the floor.' Emily replied with satisfaction.

'Right so now we just have to do one final charm...' Sirius waved his wand over the caldron holding their enchanted water. 'And just feed it to the patient zero.'

...

They sneaked out of the Gryffindor common room, all of the Marauders except Remus. He had refused to be a part of this, he said that Snape had done nothing wrong. Peter was grateful that he was on this side of the galleon. He thought back to his days in his muggle primary school, and thought it was nice that he wasn't the one stuck on the floor for once.

'Well, well Snivellus. What do we have here?' James did an uncanny impression of filch in his last question.

Snape spun around, his features twisted by fury. 'Po...' Was all he got out, before Sirius his him with a body bind.

'Petrificus totalus.' Emily repeated, writing it down on her hand.

'Defence against the dark arts, not charms.' Sirius informed her, flashing a grin. They then advanced on Sirius, who's face had been frozen in fury, and his eyes showed burning hatred. His eyes followed their steps, unable to move in any other way.

James uncorked a small bottle full of the enchanted water, and tipped it down his throat. 'Drink up.'

Sirius then released him from the body bind, once James was a safe distance away.

'What was that?!' Snape demanded, trying his best to cough up the potion.

'Just something to start it off. We're calling it the Snivellus touch.' Emily smiled sweetly, but her eyes didn't match her voice. Snape suddenly lunged for his wand, which had rolled about a meter away, but James was faster. He kicked it away, just out of reach.

'Tut tut.' He said disapprovingly. 'You need to work on your reflexes.'

'I hate you.' Snape spat

'I wouldn't have it any other way.'

The marauders turned to walk away, and Snape suddenly sounded worried.

'Wait! What does that potion do?'

'We've already told you that.' Emily surveyed him from above.

'Fine.' Snape's expression twisted once more. 'What does 'the Snivellus touch' do?'

James glanced Sirius and Emily, looking for confirmation tot tell him. When he received his unspoken request he answered.

'Makes everyone you touch have some of your more repulsing qualities.' James crouched, so he was on the same eye level as Snape. 'Greasy black hair, sallow skin and a dull monotonous voice.' James turned and walked away.

'Wouldn't it be a shame if filch found you here?' Sirius mocked, before leaving too.

'Bye now.' Emily followed. Peter just looked strangely anticipated but gleeful, before following along too.

...

Remus was sat on his bed in his dormitory when Sirius, Emily, James and Peter entered.

'Finished torturing Snape?' Remus asked dryly, glaring at them.

'Its a prank.' James eyes narrowed. He didn't like Remus being so righteous, he was fine with him not joining in, it was when he criticised them that he got defensive.

'What ever you want to call it, just because your mad at him.'

'We don't get mad, we get even.' Emily grabbed her cloak and went to leave.

'I seem to recall you doing both.' Remus called after her.

'Drop it.' Sirius muttered, getting changed into his pyjamas.

...

**A/N: So, I know the Marauders seemed like total D!€£$ in this, but they were speaking to Snape so... Let me know if Remus seems to OOC, but th****e marauders haven't found out his secret yet, or accepted him, so I don't think he would just blindly follow whatever they say. Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to review.**


	39. Chapter 39

The Snivellus touch caused chaos. Snape had already released 3 strands of it across the school. One to one of his dorm mates, a second to someone he say next to in the great hall, and third to Lily Evans. It wasn't that the disease was that bad in itself, just undesirables, so anyone carrying it was avoided. Because no-one really wants to be avoided, and it was school kids, it caused a lot more havoc than it was worth.

One person who didn't try to immediately pass it on was Lily. As soon as she 'contracted' it, she went storming up to the Gryffindor common room, where the marauders were lounging by the fire.

'Potter!' She yelled, heading towards him. Her voice was warbled by the disease, making it sound comical.

James saw the fireball heading his way, and jumped up off the couch in haste, falling over the back and scrambling away. 'Sorry Evans, I do not want The Snivellus Touch.'

'You're the one person who deserves it!' Lily raged continuing towards him.

James scrambled to his feet, and dodged round a table, so Lily was on the other side. Lily faced him opposite, not going around, because that would give James a clear route to escape.

'And why is that?' James asked distractedly, alert in case Lily suddenly lunged.

'YOU did this to me!' She screeched.

'Well, no, I didn't it to Snivellus actually.'

'Don't take all the credit, mate. It was my idea.' Sirius lounged on the now empty couch.

'You!' Lily hissed, now heading towards him instead. Emily nudged Peter, and indicated to the portrait hole and they began to edge their way there. James saw them and he darted for it as well. 3 of the marauders escaped out of the portrait hole, Sirius jumped over the couch to avoid Lily, and joined them. They sprinted down the corridor, before realising Lily wasn't going after them.

Back in the common room, Remus looked up from his book, to see Lily glaring at him.

'Sorry about them. I told them to stop, I even tried to sabotage their potion, but they were guarding it.'

'You- you didn't help?' Lily sat down opposite Remus.

'Course not.' Remus scoffed. 'They were being gits, and I'm going to make sure they know it tonight.'

Lily was silent for a moment, then she said quietly, 'Thanks.'

...

Remus did 'speak' to the marauders about what they did, and he thought he might have made them feel a little bit remorseful, though it was hard to tell if they were acting or not. He felt like Professor Mcgonagall by the time he'd finished.

...

'You know that disease book we got the Snivellus touch idea from?' Sirius whispered in an undertone to James, once Remus had fallen asleep.

'Yeah?' James responded sleepily.

'Well, there's only really one magical disease that's affected by the moon. But it's not because it makes the person slightly better, it makes them worse.'

'What?'

'Technically the moon is the only reason for the disease. It's lycanthropy.'

'You mean werewolves and stuff?'

'Exactly.' Sirius whispered.

'But that doesn't make any sense! Why would Remus visit his mother when she was a wolf? It's dangerous, and there's no point. Unless...' James trailed off.

'Remus' mother isn't the one turning into a wolf.' Sirius finished grimly.

...

Sirius and James, being how reckless they usually were, decided just to go and see for themselves, they didn't tell Peter or even Emily, just in case they were wrong. On the night of the full moon, they said they were going to bed early. In actual fact they sneaked out of the Gryffindor common room under the cloak, and waited outside the portrait hole.

'Bye.' They heard Remus call distantly, before the portrait swung open and he clambered out.

They followed quietly, all the way out of Hogwarts, shooting each other knowing glances as he passed Dumbledore's office without a second glance. When he walked out of the doors they were a bit confused.

Remus approached the whomping willow, and looked around for a big stick, being unknowing watched. When he jabbed at a knot in the tree and it went still, James forgot to keep silent.

'He's going to hogsmead!' He hissed under his breath. Sirius stomped on his foot to get him to shut up. Remus' head snapped sound from near the centre of the trunk. After a few tense seconds the whomping willow began to twitch again, and Remus apparently dismissed James voice as the whispering of the wind and the leaves.

He disappeared under the tree, and James and Sirius whipped off the cloak, which had started to get a bit stuffy underneath.

'What now?' James asked, his voice quite, even though Remus had gone. The wind whipped at their bodies, and sounded eerie. Mix that with the fact they were stalking a possible werewolf under a tree that wanted to kill them and they were both a bit creeped out.

'Well we would have been able to follow him if you had kept your trap shut.' Sirius snapped, annoyed.

'We could just go to hogsmead the other way?' James suggested, not in the least perturbed.

They set off down the tunnel to honeydukes, and then made their way slowly to the shrieking shack. Remus' transformation was well underway, and he was howling like mad. They could hear banging on the walls as the wolf repeatedly threw itself at them.

The wolf could smell the two humans outside, and it let out a howl of hunger. Remus, who hadn't yet receded into unknowing unconsciousness, wondered why his other form was going so mad. Neither James nor Sirius suggested going any further, or actually into the place, they both just stood outside, listening, waiting. As much as Sirius and James were brave and reckless, they weren't quite Gryffindor enough to go into an abandoned shack with no easily accessible exit, where they knew a werewolf was lurking waiting to slaughter them inside.

'Should we- should we go back, sleep for a bit then come back in the morning?' James asked tentatively, after what felt like hours, but was probably merely minutes standing outside the shrieking shack.

Sirius agreed readily, glad that he wasn't the one to suggest it.

The next morning, they got up early, and stalked out the hidden entrance to the whomping willow. They saw Madam Pomfrey enter, with a worried, almost shifty look. Her eyes, and come back out with a floating Remus, covered in bruises, and deep claw marks. He was apparently unconscious and covered in blood from his scratches. Not of the blood ever dripped onto the floor though, making James and Sirius wonder if there was magic involved. Once she was out of the secret passage, she cast the invisibility charm, James could hear her muttering to herself about how it was worse than usual, and he bit his lip worriedly. Sirius intake his breath shaply, causing an almost audible sound at the sight of Remus' unconscious form. James and Sirius were shocked and had no clue what to do next.

...

**A/N: And they found out! But how will they take it, and will they tell Emily Peter, or even Remus himself that they know? I'll try to write another chapter soon so you can find out XD bit of a longer chapter, don't forget to review for a speedy update!**


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